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Abbott, Byrdine Akers, 
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Disciples : an 
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https://archive.org/details/disciplesinterprO0abbo 


THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST 





ek 


Pre DISCIPLES 


AN INTERPRETATION 


By B. A. ABBOTT 


Editor of ““The Christian-Evangelist,”’ Author “The Life of Chapman 
S. Lucas,’? Sometime Pastor of the Christian Church at 
Charlottesville, Va.; Harlem cAvenue Christian 
Church, Baltimore, Maryland; and Union 

Avenue Christian Church, Sdint 


Louis, Missours 


LIBRARY OF PRINCETON 


sr cui iaresrd abt 


(HEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 





THE BETHANY PRESS 
CHRISTIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
ST. LOUIS, MO. 


Copyright, 1924 
Christian Board of Publication 
St. Louis, Mo. 


Prefatory 


of Christ. It is not necessary and it is not desirable. 

With them the ultimate Christian authority is Jesus 
Christ and the New Testament reveals his mind. ‘‘We have 
the mind of Christ.’’ 


N O one can write an authoritative book for the Disciples 


But books of interpretation and information are needed 
by a people from time to time, in order to hold them to 
their visions, and make them able to grapple with the prob- 
lems of 2 civilization perpetually growing larger and more 
complex. This book keeps in mind the relation of the Dis- 
ciples to the changed methods and) temper of the times, 
and to the new thought world into which we have come. 


Following a long period of work as pastor in the east 
and central west, it has been my pleasure during the past 
seven years to visit both State and National conventions 
of Disciples of Christ in many sections of our country. I 
have talked with people in all ranks of church life, and 
have looked at the Brotherhood whole and from many 
angles. 


In every way my esteem for the consecration and ability 
of the ministers and for the personnel and prophetic out- 
look of the churches has grown greater, and my conviction 
of the truth and the timeliness of the proposal of the Disci- 
ples has been strengthened and vitalized. 


After much refiection upon what I have seen and heard 
in these farflung visits, and after practically rereading jthe 
history and ideals of the Disciples as set forth in the writ- 
ings of the Campbells, the autobiography of Barton W. 
Stone, the five great debates of Alexander Campbell and 
the histories of the movement by B. B. Tyler, J. H. Garri- 
son and W. T. Moore, I have written this interpretation. 
It is intended for the general reader, for the use of pastors 
in training new converts, for classes in Christian leadership, 
and for Sunday schools and colleges wishing a brief course 
in the history of the Disciples. 


5 


6 PREFATORY 


The work has been done in hours snatched from press- 
ing duties in the office and from the precious quiet evenings 
at home; in the environment of strange hotels; and in the 
Pullman on long and often lonely transcontinental trips 
while seeking to do my bit for the Brotherhood. 


This interpretation is dedicated to my comrades in a 
great movement which will continue to be both a revival 
and a crusade until the goal of Jesus Christ has been real- 
ized in the strength of.a united church and the glory of » 
redeemed world. 


Special thanks are given Jesse M. Bader, Superintendent 
of Evangelism, on account of whose suggestion and en- 
thusiasm I undertook and continued the work; to Frederick 
D. Kershner, Professor of Christian Doctrine in Drake Uni- 
versity; to R. Graham Frank, General Secretary of the 
International Convention of Disciples of Christ, and to my 
wife, Helen Ireland Abbott, all of whom read the manu- 
script and made valuable suggestions; to Miss Jessie Wood- 
ley, my secretary, who labored patiently and often over 
hours to get the work ready for the compositors; and to 
Ww. P. Sheiton, whose co-operation as General Manager of 
the Christian Board of Publication made possible the issue 
of this volume. 


If this book shall make even a small contribution to the 
ehurch which is to me the very gate of heaven—the church 
which would in the name of the ‘‘Master of all good work- 
men’’ render a service to all the churches, and above all 
to the Church of which all are but visible segments, I shall 
be repaid a thousandfold for my labor. 


B. A. ABBOTT. 
Jan, 26, 1924. 


CONTENTS 
CHAPTER 
I. History of the Disciples of Christ 
II. The Proposal of the Disciples 
III. Doctrine of the Disciples 
IV. The Bible and Its Use 
V. The Church and Its Purpose 
VI. The Ordinances and Their Reason 
VII. Baptism, the Faith Ordinance 
VIII. The Lord’s Supper, the Love 
Ordinance BBA a 
IX. The Lord’s Day and Its Value 
X. Joining the Church 
XI. A Good Church Member 
XII. How the Churches Work 
XIII. How the Churches Work Together . 
XIV. How the Churches Work with Others 
XV. The Supreme Purpose of Jesus Christ 
XVI. Seripture Background . 


92 
106 


118 
132 
145 
162 
178 
196 
213 
229 
244 





CHAPTER I 
HISTORY OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST 


RUE Church history records the works of 

God through his people, chosen because they 
were willing to be chosen as his instruments. Jesus 
founded the Church and it went well until it 
yielded to the snare of institutionalism and Roman 
Catholic absolutism which held sway for a thou- 
sand years. This power was broken and Protes- 
tantism was launched by the work of Martin Lu- 
ther. The building ideas in Protestantism were 
justification by faith, freedom of conscience, the 
right to read the Scriptures and to be guided by 
them without overhead authority. But the ideal 
has not yet been fully wrought out. Creeds were 
written and men required to conform to them. 
Protestantism was in danger of becoming an ar- 
rested development. To protest against the divi- 
sions and the threatened crystallization of Prot- 
estantism arose the Disciples of Christ, as outlined . 
in this chapter. In their democracy and accept- 
ance of the Bible, with all the implications, the 
Disciples stand on the ultimate Protestant grounds. 
They have carried out and practiced the true Prot- 
estant ideas. 


10 THE DISCIPLES 


How the Movement Arose 

Thomas and Alexander Campbell in West Vir- 
ginia, Barton W. Stone with other men of great 
intellect and spirituality in Kentucky; Walter 
Scott in Ohio, Dr. Chester Bullard in Virginia, 
and James O’Kelly in North Carolina and able 
Christians in various parts of the country, without 
knowledge of the views and actions of each other, 
lifted up their voices against division in the body 
of Christ, caused by unwarranted assumptions of 
authority by the institution, and by the substitu- 
tion of interpretations of the New Testament for 
the New Testament itself. 


The earliest large movement in this direction 
began in 1804 under the leadership of Barton W. 
Stone, a Presbyterian minister in Kentucky. It 
grew out of the Caneridge revival, near Paris, 
Kentucky, which was one of the most remarkable 
spiritual manifestations in the history of Chris- 
tianity. Out of it in whole or in part, gushed three 
new streams of church life in America—the Chris- 
tian Connection, the Cumberland Presbyterian, 
and the fiery evangelism communicated to the Dis- 
ciples by Barton W. Stone and his churches. 

In August, 1809, Thomas Campbell, of Wash- 
ington, Pa., formed ‘‘The Christian Association 
of Washington,’’ and in September of the same 
year issued a remarkable Declaration and Address, 
deploring the tendencies of party spirit and hurt- 


HISTORY OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST 11 


ful divisions among Christians, and the ecclesias- 
tical enforcement of the human interpretations of 
God’s Word in place of the pure doctrine of 
Christ. 

The principles of this address were cordially 
endorsed by Alexander Campbell, his son, and in 
the following year (1810) he began publicly to 
urge them upon the churches. It was hoped, and 
sincere and strenuous effort was made, to avoid 
setting up a new body of people but the temper of 
Christians at the time compelled such a course. 


The first separate organization as a church was 
formed May 4, 1811, at Brush Run, Pennsylvania, 
with twenty-nine members; in 1813 this church 
united with the Redstone Baptist Association and 
ten years after with the Mahoning association of 
the same people. In 1823 Mr. Campbell began 
publishing The Christian Baptist, and his teach- 
ings soon attracted wide attention. Opposition 
was aroused and his views were denounced as het- 
erodox, but large numbers accepted them. Many 
new churches came into existence under his labors 
and those of Walter Scott, and the Baptists began 
to declare non-fellowship with the Campbells and 
their associates. Thus the Disciples were driven 
to form themselves into a separate body, that they 
might follow the truth as God gave them to see it. 
Until this day they regret separate existence but 
they do not apologize for it. 


12 THE DISCIPLES 


Their life as an independent, modern body may 
be dated from 1827 when they became known as 
Disciples of Christ. It was plainly a renaissance 
of the apostolic ideal, organization, method and 
emphasis. Establishing a separate group of Chris- 
tians made the plea of the Campbells for Christian 
union more difficult, but did not nullify it. It is 
consistent and logical to preach the value and 
truthfulness of a doctrine even though the practice 
of it may lag far behind. Ideals must be held up 
and urged even if the future should be long in 
realizing them. 


Christians and Disciples Unite 


In 1832 Barton W. Stone, together with a ma- 
jority of those who held his views, and Alexander 
Campbell and his followers, began to be united 
into one body. A meeting had been called for the 
purpose; ‘‘Raccoon’’ John Smith and B. W. Stone 
were the appointed speakers representing the Dis- 
ciples and the Christians respectively. There was 
a public, dramatic, and touching overt act on Sat- 
urday, January 1, 1832, at Lexington, Kentucky, 
which may be regarded as the actual formal step 
that initiated the union of Disciples and Chris- 
tians. It is so important historically and so sug- 
gestive practically and doctrinally that we copy 
the following description of it from the Life of 
Jobn Smith. Closing his address Smith said: 


Va 
HISTORY OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST te 


For several years past I have stood pledged to meet 
the religious world, or any part of it, on the ancient 
Gospel and order of things, as presented in the words of 
the Book. This is the foundation on which Christians 
once stood, and on it they can, and ought to, stand again. 
From this I cannot depart to meet any man, or set of 
men, in the wide world. While, for the sake of peace 
and Christian union, I have long since waived the public 
maintenance of any speculation I may hold, yet not one 
gospel fact, commandment, or promise, will I surrender 
for the world! 

Let us, then, my brethren, be no longer Campbellites, 
or Stoneites, New Lights, or Old Lights or any kind of 
lights, but let us all come to the Bible and to the Bible 
alone, as the only Book in the world that can give us all 
the light we need. 


He sat down, and Stone arose, his heart glow- 
ing with love, and every pulse bounding with hope. 


I will not attempt to introduce any new topic, but 
will say a few things on the same subjects already pre- 
sented by my beloved brother. 


After speaking for some time in a strain of ir- 
resistible tenderness, he said: 


Controversies of the Church sufficiently prove that 
Christians never can be one in their speculations upon 
those mysterious and sublime subjects, which, while they 
interest the Christian philosopher, can not edify the 
Church. After we had given up all creeds and taken the 
Bible, and the Bible alone, as our rule of faith and prac- 
tice, we met with so much opposition, that, by force of 
circumstances, I was led to deliver some speculative dis- 
courses upon these subjects. But I never preached a 
sermon of that kind that really feasted my heart; I al- 


14 Toe DISCIPLES 


ways felt a barrenness of soul afterwards. I perfectly 
accord with Brother Smith that those speculations should 
never be taken into the pulpit; but that when compelled 
to speak of them at all, we should do so in the words of 
inspiration. 

I have not one objection to the ground laid down by 
him as the true scriptural basis of union among the peo- 
ple of God; and I am willing to give him, now and here, 
my hand. 


He turned as he spoke, and offered to Smith a 
hand trembling with rapture and brotherly love, 
and it was grasped by a hand full of the honest 
pledges of fellowship, and the union was virtually 
accomplished! 


It was now proposed that all who felt willing to 
unite on these principles, should express their will- 
ingness by giving one another the hand of fellow- 
ship; and elders and teachers hastened forward, 
and joined their hands and hearts in joyful accord. 
A song arose, and brethren and sisters, with many 
tearful greetings, ratified and confirmed the union. 
On Lord’s day, they broke the loaf together, and 
in that sweet and solemn communion, again pledged 
to each other their brotherly love. 

This union of the Christians and the Disciples 
was not a surrender of the one party to the other; 
it was an agreement of such as already recognized 
and loved each other as brethren, to work and to 
worship together. It was a union of those who 
held alike the necessity of implicit faith and of 


HISTORY OF THE DISCIPLES oF CHRIST 15 


unreserved obedience; who accepted the facts, com- 
mands, and promises, as set forth in the Bible; 
who conceded the right of private judgment to all; 
who taught that opinions were no part of the faith 
delivered to the saints; and who were now pledged 
that no speculative matters should ever be debated 
to the disturbance of the peace and harmony of 
the Church, but that when compelled to speak on 
controverted subjects, they would adopt the style 
and language of the Holy Spirit. (History of the 
Disciples of Christ, by Moore, pp. 208-209.) 

A considerable number of the ‘‘Christian’’ 
Churches refused to enter this union and they 
grew into the body known as ‘“‘the Christian 
Chureh’’ but not an organization of the Disciples 
held back. 


For the next thirty-five years Mr. Campbell was 
the foremost figure in the united movement. The 
body has grown to be large and influential and is 
ealled ‘‘Christian’’ and ‘‘Disciple.’’ The group 
headed by Stone was known as ‘‘Christian’’ by his 
choice, while Campbell preferred the name ‘‘ Dis- 
eiple.’’ The church is registered in the census of 
the United States as Disciples of Christ. 


Conditions and methods were little stressed at 
first but the authoritative standard was prominent 
from the beginning. That authority was the Bible. 
Rapid growth soon forced the consideration of 
methods, and thorough study made it apparent 


16 THE DISCIPLES 


that the only way to union was by the restoration 
of the apostolic church as delineated in the New 
Testament. The apostles preached Christ as the 
object of faith. Having thus a clear vision of their 
goal, method, and guide, the Disciples faced their 
duty and undertook their part in the spread of 
Christianity. 

The modern Disciples of Christ, now more than 
a century old, have never lost their passion for 
Christian union nor abandoned the belief that it 
will be brought about by the leadership of the 
Holy Spirit and the guidance of the New Testa- 
ment exerted through the Church of Jesus Christ. 
Never in their history have the Disciples failed to 
co-operate with any true Christian union move- 
ment. Alexander Campbell heartily supported 
both the ‘‘American and Foreign Bible Society’’ 
and the ‘‘American Bible Society’’ by personal 
gifts and by exhorting all the churches to do like- 
wise. He donated the royalties from his debate 
with Purcell to these societies equally. In 1838 it 
amounted to $800. The proceeds from each copy 
was six cents. Mr. Campbell was also a member 
of the ‘‘American Bible Union’’ whose object was 
to procure and circulate the most faithful versions 
of the Seriptures. The Disciples have always 
joined other Christians heartily in all co-operative 
movements. When the Young People’s Society of 
Christian Endeavor arose the churches immedi- 


HISTORY OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST 17 


ately entered into it and became an important 
force in its development. They have always been 
active in union Sunday school work. From its 
foundation, they have co-operated with the Federal 
Council of Churches of Christ in America and have 
furnished some of its ablest leaders. They were 
active in the Interchurch World Movement and 
bore their share of the burden when it collapsed. 
Thus many times they have proved their faith by 
their works. 


The Principles Followed 


In order to escape the party spirit which has 
broken the peace and reduced the power of 
Christ’s Church, the Disciples sought to stand 
on common, universal ground. Without this there 
ean be no real union. They propose the following 
principles of life and union to their brethren, in 
addition to the great fundamentals manifestly held 
by all Christians: 

1. A universal Church. The pioneers said, and 
their successors today declare, that ‘‘the Church 
of Christ is intentionally and constitutionally one, 
and all divisions which break this unity are con- 
trary to the will of God.’’ 

2. They propose a universal book as the only 
rule of faith and practice, the only authoritative 
and complete repository of all that is necessary to 
faith, practice and expectation in this world and 
in that which is to come. That book is the Bible, 


18 THE DISCIPLES 


the only book which can support claims of univer- 
sality and of special revelation. 

"3. The universal confession of faith, that Jesus 
is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. (Matt. 
Lolo 6m 

4. The universal, Scriptural names, believer, 
Christian, disciple; saint, brethren and the other 
great words that describe the people of God. 

5. The universally accepted ordinances, Baptism 
and the Lord’s Supper, in form, administration 
and purpose as they were given and practiced by 
Christ and his apostles. 

6. The universal life, such as that set forth by 
Christ and his apostles in the New Testament. 

7. The universal aim, which is to establish the 
kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. 


Pioneers 


Probably the eight most prominent men who 
gave the temper, the direction, and the pace to the 
movement known as the Disciples of Christ dur- 
ing its first period can be pointed out. Four of 
these were from the Disciples with Mr. Campbell 
as leader and four from the Christians with Mr. 
Stone as leader. Of the former group Thomas 
Campbell ‘‘contributed most to the union senti- 
ment which was prominent at the beginning; Alex- 
ander Campbell contributed most to the construc- 
tive features, both theological and ecclesiastical ; 
Walter Scott contributed most to the evangelistic 


HISTORY OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST 19 


spirit and work, while Dr. Robert Richardson con- 
tributed most to the devotional and spiritual side 
of the movement.’’ These have been called the 
‘‘Big Four’’ among the modern founders of the 
Disciples. The Christian Church, or ‘‘New 
Lights,’’ gave the following leaders: Barton W. 
Stone, the pioneer and editor; Samuel Rogers, the 
erusader and evangelist; his brother, John Rogers, 
the interpreter and biographer; and John A. Gano, 
the indefatigable evangelist. With such a galaxy 
of masters it is little wonder that such a cause soon 
became prominent in the new country. The 
‘‘Christians’’ brought into the movement a new 
evangelistic element, while the ‘‘Reformers’’ 
brought into it an earnest study of the Scriptures 
and an equally earnest plea for conformity to all 
that the Seriptures enjoined. 


Agencies and Methods 


During the early period the foundations of the 
future work of the Disciples were firmly laid by 
these men and others. They instituted agencies 
of co-operation, of training, and of mutual leader- 
ship, without which no church ean live and grow. 
The chief agencies in building the brotherhood 
have been from the first the printing press, the 
local congregation, the college and the association 
of the local churches through representative con- 
ventions and missionary societies. The country 
was sown with tracts and papers, chief among 


20 THE DISCIPLES 


which were The Christian Baptist and The Millen- 
nial Harbinger, founded and edited by Mr. Camp- 
bell. Barton W. Stone and John T. Johnson edited 
and published The Christian Messenger. These 
journals were the beginnings of the Christian 
Church press. 

From time to time many periodicals saw the 
light, but most of them soon perished for lack of 
support or because they had served their purposes. 
Among distinguished weeklies which came in the 
second era were The American Christian Review, 
edited by Benjamin Franklin, the Christian 
Standard, by Isaac Errett and The Christian- 
Evangelist, by J. H. Garrison and B. W. Johnson. 
The two last papers are still being published. Two 
quarterlies existed for a while. There are several 
excellent state papers and parish papers almost 
innumerable. World Call, a monthly missionary 
magazine, is published by the United Christian 
Missionary Society. It is the continuation of five 
small monthlies. With the Christian Standard and 
The Christian-Evangelist have arisen the two pub- 
lishing houses which supply the brotherhood with 
books and literature necessary for the conservation 
and propagation of their plea and for the equip- 
ment of their Bible schools. 

Evangelism has been a prominent method of 
work among the Disciples from the beginning. 
Men of flaming hearts and fiery tongues went 


HISTORY OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST 25 


everywhere preaching the gospel. The world has 
never seen a more powerful, brilliant, dramatic, or 
effective evangelism than the pioneering of these 
early Disciples in the wonderful new West where 
the seeds of the nation were being planted in the 
soil of earth’s greatest continent. 

Bethany College was founded in 1841 to dis- 
seminate Christian education. It was part of a 
comprehensive scheme worked out by Mr. Camp- 
bell. The plan included a system of education for 
the home, the community and the chureh. It really 
proposed a new undergirding of civilization. Mr. 
Campbell’s idea was to make the Bible funda- 
mental as a text-book. Bethany is said to have 
been the first college in the world to introduce the 
English Bible into its curriculum. 

Along with formative agencies and methods al- 
ready noted we are to mention Mr. Campbell’s de- 
bates. It is doubtful whether there is any better 
means of promoting the truth or educating the 
public than by open, high toned and properly 
ethicized discussion. These debates may have cre- 
ated the impression that the Disciples are a people 
fond of strife; but their history will show, that 
while they have never allowed the community to 
stagnate mentally in religious things, no people 
have been on better terms or dwelt with their 
neighbors in more cordial, sincere, or brotherly 
relationship than the Disciples have with theirs. 


292 THe DISCIPLES 


In fact, long pondering upon their plea, upon the 
Savior’s prayer, and upon the sorrowful results 
of division, has awakened in them a passion and a 
genius for friendship with all God’s people. 

Mr. Campbell engaged in five oral debates cov- 
ering the period, 1827-1842. The first was with 
Dr. John Walker, Presbyterian minister; the sec- 
ond, with Dr. William McCalla, Presbyterian; the 
third, with Mr. Robert Owen, of Scotland, atheist 
and socialist ; the fourth, with Archbishop Pureell, 
a Roman Catholic; and finally with Dr. Nathan L. 
Rice, a Presbyterian minister of Lexington, Ky. 
Henry Clay presided at the debate with Mr. Rice. 
The last three debates are amongst the ablest and 
most informing discussions in the annals of Chris- 
tianity. They not only attracted universal atten- 
tion, but commanded the profoundest study of 
leading minds of the times. They helped to purify 
the ideals, and to eliminate much of the unneces- 
sary and the harmful from the religious thinking 
of Christians in all the churches. No student of 
American Christianity can really understand the 
development of religion and church life in the Mis- 
sissippi Valley and throughout the West without 
reading at least Campbell’s debates with Mr. Owen, 
Archbishop Pureell, and Dr. N. L. Rice. 


The discussion with Mr. Owen was probably the 
chief influence in saving ‘‘The Golden West’’ from 


HISTORY OF THE DISCIPLES oF CHRIST ao 


atheism and from social and communistic experi- 
ments which would have wrecked its civilization 
for several generations and made it permanently 
very undesirably different from what it is today. 


Organization and Achievement 


Almost immediately following the important era 
of debates came the era of the general organization 
of the churches. The Disciples are congregational 
in polity. They have no central overhead ecclesi- 
astical body that legislates for the local churches, 
either doctrinally, ecclesiastically, or in methods, 
plans or programs of work. But it early became 
apparent that no single congregation acting inde- 
pendently could carry out the terms of the Great 
Commission to preach, teach, baptize, and plant 
Christianity in all the world. The genius of the 
movement required missionary enterprise. Hav- 
ing taken Christ as Lord and Master, his command 
to preach the gospel in all the world became espe- 
cially urgent, profoundly imperative. Hence, the 
missionary societies came. By them the Disciples 
have been more fully educated in the world vision 
of Christ and given an objective and an oppor- 
tunity as wide and deep as the needs of the human 
race. 

Besides, so much momentum had been generated 
by their vigorous evangelism that it was necessary 
to have organization to keep it all from ending 
in chaos. A great religious body with the dynamic 


24 THE DISCIPLES 


of passion and the momentum of activity becomes 
a terrible menace to itself and Christendom unless 
made orderly and directed by wise organization. 
So the ablest and most far-seeing men planned a 
missionary organization in 1849. Alexander Camp- 
bell was its first president. It was known as the 
American Christian Missionary Society. The first 
foreign missionary sent out by the society was Dr. 
James T. Barclay, of Virginia, who went to the 
city of Jerusalem. Other societies came later, the 
chief ones being the Christian Woman’s Board of 
Missions in 1874; the Foreign Christian Mission- 
ary Society in 1875; the National Benevolent As- 
sociation in 1886; the Church Extension Board in 
1888, the Board of Ministerial Relief in 1895; the 
Board of Temperance and Social Welfare in 1907; 
the Board of Education in 1915; and in 1910 the 
Association for the Promotion of Christian Unity. 


During the years 1874-1913 the churches had 
been instructed and educated in missionary ideals, 
chiefly under the leadership of A. McLean and F. 
M. Rains, until the enkindled passion and vision 
came to expression in the Men and Millions Move- 
ment. This was a most remarkable crusade and 
challenged the Disciples with the mission of the 
Master as they had never before been challenged. 

It created a new era of enlargement and enthu- 
siasm in the Church. It grew out of the sugges- 
tion of Alexander Paul, a missionary to China, 


HISTORY OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST 25 


while on a sick bed, that $200,000 be raised to meet 
the great new opportunity in that country. It was 
like a vision and he spoke of it again and again 
until through prayer and conference with such 
leaders as F’. M. Rains, A. McLean, A. HE. Cory, 
W. F. Holt, Mrs. M. E. Harlan, Grant K. Lewis, 
R. A. Long and others it was decided to raise $6,- 
300,000 for the general missionary, ministerial, 
educational and benevolent work of the Church. 
R. A. Long subseribed and paid $1,100,000 toward 
this fund, which was perhaps the largest single 
sum ever given in such a way. This movement 
resulted not only in securing millions of dollars 
but more than 8,000 young people enlisted for life 
service of some specific kind and a new system 
of finance was adopted by most of the churches. 
Its influence has been altogether spiritual and new 
streams of life and power are manifest everywhere 
as a result of it. 


In response to an overwhelming demand the 
American Christian Missionary Society, the For- 
eign Christian Missionary Society, the Christian 
Woman’s Board of Missions and the National Be- 
nevolent Association were merged into one organ- 
ization, which is known today as the United Chris- 
tian Missionary Society. This kind of expansion 
and arrangement shows the methods of adapta- 
tion to the growing life and outreach of the Church. 
These organizations are general, but the different 


26 THE DISCIPLES 


states have their own missionary associations. 
Some states are districted and each district care- 
fully organized. 

The policy of general voluntary organization has 
proved practicable and effective, though it has 
caused much discussion and even at times threat- 
ened serious divisions among the churches. There 
is always more danger of schism than of heresy and 
the former probably does more harm than the lat- 
ter. How to work together will always be a prob- 
lem for people who think and who are personally 
responsible to God for their conduct. 


Under the stimulation of co-operative efforts the 
strong have helped to bear the burdens of the weak 
and development has been, for the most part, sym- 
metrical and spiritual. The local churches have 
been strengthened and at the same time delivered 
from hurtful provincialism. They have been kept 
informed about the needy places of the world and 
have been able to cope with the growing life of the 
nation. 


In October, 1909, a centennial convention was 
held in Pittsburgh, Pa., in celebration of the utter- 
ance of the Declaration and Address by Thomas 
Campbell and others at Washington, Pa., in Sep- 
tember, 1809. Disciples from all over the world 
were in attendance. Some had travelled around 
the earth to be present. Probably 50,000 people 
came together in this celebration. A communion 


HISTORY OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST ae | 


service was held in Forbes Field and at least 30,000 
Christians partook of the Lord’s Supper together. 
It is believed to have been the largest communion 
service ever held in the history of Christianity. 
There have been few if any, other visible gather- 
ings for any purpose that equalled it in numbers. 
This celebration was greatly fruitful. The Dis- 
ciples became more conscious of their power and 
importance as a movement in the Church with this 
visualization and it may be said to have eaused a 
new era of enthusiasm and expansion and of dis- 
cussion. The discussion has often caused uneasi- 
ness but the more thoughtful regard it as the grow- 
ing pains necessarily incident to enlargement. 


In the course of the movement two serious storm 
centers have developed. One was instrumental mu- 
sic in public worship, the other was the organiza- 
tion of special societies for evangelistic, mission- 
ary, benevolent and educational purposes. The mu- 
sic question agitated the churches greatly for a 
time. It was a survival and echo of the conflict in 
the Scotch churches over the use of any kind of 
instrument in the churches and of singing anything 
but the psalms. The majority of the Disciples have 
decided that the organ is not sinful though many 
congregations refuse to ‘‘fellowship’’ with churches 
using the organ. But experience has proved that 
music does not despiritualize people and the whole 
question is now treated as one indifferent to morals. 


28 THE DISCIPLES 


religion and church order. The debate over the 
societies is still kept up, but in the meantime the 
vast majority of the people are working co-opera- 
tively through them. They are treated as expedi- 
ences but time has demonstrated their value. 


Colleges and Education 


At first the Disciples were unusually active in 
education. Beginning with Bethany College, which 
has had a very distinguished career, individual 
Disciples and groups of men and women have 
established colleges in Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Washington, Cal- 
ifornia, Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, New York and 
in fact in almost every state in the Union, for the 
service of the Church. Many of these colleges have 
gone out of existence because, being purely indi- 
vidual enterprises, there was no money to keep 
them going after their founders had passed away. 
The educational interests of the Disciples lan- 
guished for a considerable period. Even Bethany 
College was almost lost on account of lack of sup- 
port. But recently a new zeal for education has 
been kindled throughout the brotherhood. Much 
money is being given by wealthy business men to 
strengthen and enlarge the colleges. The statement 
has been made recently that more money has been 
given to support and endow colleges of the Disci- 
ples during the last ten years than during all the 
previous history of the movement. This is the be- 


HISTORY OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST 29 


ginning of a new educational era. It is full of 
promise for the future of the Disciples. They now 
have (1923) about thirty colleges in the United 
States and one in Australia. Some of them are 
senior colleges and most of them have brighter 
prospects for usefulness than ever before. 

One of the most important education develop- 
ments was the establishment of Bible chairs in con- 
nection with some of the State universities of the 
land. The idea of placing theological seminaries 
next to the universities was first proposed in the 
United States by Thomas Jefferson in connection 
with the University of Virginia. But it remained 
for the Christian Woman’s Board of Missions, one 
of the former organizations of the Disciples of 
Christ, to put this unique but very practical and 
practicable idea into active operation. Accord- 
ingly chairs have been established at the Universi- 
ties of Michigan, Virginia, Kansas, Texas, and 
Bible Colleges at the Universities of Indiana and 
Missouri. The results have been satisfactory. The 
experimental stage is past. Probably other 
chairs of the kind will be established in the future. 


Recapitulation and Outlook 

There are churches of this faith and order in 
every state in the Union, excepting Nevada and 
New Hampshire, and in the following countries: 
Africa, England, Scotland, Canada, Sweden, Nor- 
way, Denmark, the West Indies, South America, 


30 THE DISCIPLES 


Australasia, China, Japan, India, Mexico, Hawaii, 
the Philippine Islands and Tibet. The totals for 
the world are: number of churches 9,533 ; member- 
ship 1,416,457; ministers, including missionaries 
8,184. The 8,763 Sunday schools in the United 
States and Canada have 1,097,386 pupils. These 
figures are not only conservative but are believed 
to be hundreds of thousands below the actual num- 
ber of members in the United States. Many of the 
churches refuse to give statistics and only those 
which do so are counted. | 


Thus, briefly, came into existence and grew this 
religious body which is a new world development 
of Christianity from the sowing of Christ and his 
apostles. It is able to flourish in all countries be- 
cause it is an organism rather than an organiza- 
tion. It is the most completely democratic of any 
religious body and takes its stand firmly upon the 
original Protestant principle enunciated by Chil- 
lingworth: ‘‘The Bible, the whole Bible, and noth- 
in¢ but the Bible, is the religion of Protestants.”’ 
The movement is inclusive and not exclusive and 
its passion is to deliver the Chureh of Christ from 
those proseriptions, suspicions, and ambitions 
which have marred its beauty, disturbed its peace, 
despoiled its spirituality, and limited its power in 
the earth. 

The Disciples gladly rejoice in the thought that 
others as well as themselves are Christians. They 


HISTORY OF THE DISCIPLES oF CHRIST Sl 


simply desire to be Christians only, and their 
churches aim to be only churches of Christ. With 
no ereed but Christ, no book but the Bible, they 
have no aim but to serve. Religious conditions in 
the world and amongst the Disciples cause them 
to believe that their views will meet with even 
greater favor in the future than in the past, and 
their growth will be more rapid and solid. The 
passing of a century shows no abatement of energy 
or diminution of evangelistic fervor, and their 
principles are commanding wider and more favor- 
able consideration than ever before. 


CHAPTER II 
THE PROPOSAL OF THE DISCIPLES 


HE seed of the Reformation of the 16th Cen- 

tury was sown in the heart of Martin Luther 
when, as a youth of eighteen years, he saw for the 
first time a complete copy of the Bible. The seed 
was quickened in his study of the Bible which he 
found chained in the convent. The seed was further 
quickened as he was ascending Pilate’s Staircase 
on his knees on his first visit to Rome when he heard 
a voice of thunder crying from the bottom of his 
heart, ‘The just shall live by faith.’’ That was the 
true conception of the Christian life. The Ref- 
ormation became a reality launched upon the field 
of history when he nailed the ninety-five theses to 
the door of Wittenberg Church, and when he ap- 
peared as the defender of the faith and of the 
supremacy of the conscience of the individual at 
the Diet of Worms. There and then modern de- 
mocracy was born and the way opened to recover 
the true idea of the church. 

But it was a long way to full realization and 
we have not yet reached the goal. The centuries 
since have been full of religious debate. With free- 
dom of discussion, the 17th and 18th centuries wit- 
nessed many strange ideas. Atheism and anarchy 


32 


THE PROPOSAL OF THE DISCIPLES oo 


were rife. It was an age of exploration and new 
nations were struggling for life. Men were neces- 
sarily tenacious of their views and hostile to one 
another. The 18th century of the Church dawned 
with the sectarian, ecclesiastical and theological 
mind. Foundations were being laid in America 
and every sect was urging its claims that it might 
control the new land. Strife was terrible and bit- 
ter. Into such a condition in 1809 Thomas and 
Alexander Campbell set up the plea for the union 
of God’s people. The text, ‘‘Come out of her, my 
people,’’ was being preached everywhere as the 
cure of the ills of Christianity. Even the wonder- 
ful preaching and work of Barton W. Stone, be- 
ginning in 1804, was at first based upon the view 
that reformation by ‘‘coming out’’ was the right 
way to a pure, New Testament Christianity. 


In the midst of this the Campbells discovered 
in the New Testament that the way to the perfec- 
tion and power of the Church was by union, in- 
stead of by division or by the process of ‘‘coming 
out.’’ To be sure union had been advocated be- 
fore by spiritually minded ministers and by eccle- 
siastics. But with the former it was simply a fine 
wish of the heart and with the latter a purely ec- 
clesiastical measure. The basis proposed was the 
ereeds and the method that of the absorption of 
one body by another. The Campbells proposed 
faith in Jesus Christ as the doctrinal basis of 


34 Tur DISCIPLES 


union, the New Testament as the only authorita- 
tive interpretation of the mind of Christ, and the 
life, the practices, the spirit and the fruits of the 
apostolic Church as the norm of methods and 
ideals. This was the discovery of the Campbells 
and they made it their plan and proposal to the 
Christian world, and they spent their lives with 
passion and arduous work to bring it to the atten- 
tion of Christendom. This was one of the greatest 
ereative religious visions of recent times tending 
to restore the apostolic Church, to increase spir- 
ituality, and to establish brotherhood in the world. 
It is to be classed with the vision of the spiritual 
value of the Bible followed by John Wickliffe; the 
freedom of the faith by Martin Luther; the sov- 
ereignty of God by John Calvin; the purpose of 
God in heathen missions by William Carey; and 
the necessity of the personal experience of God by 
John Wesley. 


The Proposal of the Disciples 


It is their proposal to the 200 different religious 
bodies which shelter under the name ‘‘Christian.”’ 
It implies that whatever the necessity for analysis 
and division in the past the time has now come 
for synthesis and union. The principles underly- 
ing the proposal of the Disciples are that the 
Church is one, that it is spiritual, that it is the 
body of Christ, that it is a brotherhood and that 
division is therefore against the will of God and 


THE PROPOSAL OF THE DISCIPLES 35 


the very genius of Christianity. Reconciliation 
and atonement must not only prevail between God 
and man, and man and man, but also between 
ehureh and church. 

The proposal of the Disciples is their plea for 
the union of all God’s people on the foundation 
of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself 
being the chief corner stone. It is a eall to God’s 
people to come out of their separate and isolated 
existence and become one in Jesus Christ with his 
doctrine, work, word, hope and worship as guides 
in the way of life. It is, therefore, a plea of large 
friendships and all-inclusive fellowships. It is the 
plea to all God’s people to take the Word of God 
as their only rule of faith and practice. 


Reason of the Proposal 

1. It is urged by the evils of sectarianism. 

Thomas Campbell, who first made the proposal, 
was a Presbyterian minister from Ireland. When 
he settled in Western Pennsylvania he found bit- 
ter divisions among the churches where he worked. 
How strong were the feelings of antagonism be- 
tween people of different churches in his day may 
be judged from an incident. On one occasion Alex- 
ander Campbell, who with his father was promot- 
ing the new Christian Union movement, was caught 
in a severe storm and one of his neighbors, a mem- 
ber of another church, refused to let him come into 
the house to shelter from the storm because he was 


36 THE DISCIPLES 


adjudged a heretic. That was sectarianism gone 
mad but all sectarianism has such possibilities. 
The first aim of the proposal was to destroy such a 
spirit. 

2. It is urged by the words of Christ and His 
Apostles. 

The Campbells were impelled by the study of 
the New Testament to seek for the union of God’s 
people. No one who studies the words of Christ 
and his apostles can for a moment harbor the 
thought that division is right. Schism is a sin. 
It is the rending of the body of Christ. Christ’s 
prayer for the oneness of his disciples, recorded 
in the gospel of John, chapter 17, became the great, 
all-impelling dynamic of this new movement, and 
it has been both its approach and the appeal to 
Christendom ever since. 


Paul traces the roots of division back to the un- 
regenerate heart and shows how it limits and shriv- 
els those who become parties to it. Division is a 
sin of the earnal nature. This causes the unholy 
passion for the pre-eminence. ‘‘By that sin angels 
fell.’’ The creeds which were written to hold to- 
gether the people so lately come out of ecclesias- 
ticism became dogmatic and static and so divisive. 
The plea of the Disciples is a plea for more room, 
for larger love and for practical, co-operative 
alignment with all God’s people. 


3. It is urged by the spiritual value of union. 


THe PROPOSAL OF THE DISCIPLES ST 


(a) The full and combined strength of all the 
churches is demanded to combat the evils of the 
time and to make progress in a world like this. 
There is not a Christian group in existence, there 
never has been, and there never will be one which 
is equal to the moral battles or the spiritual leader- 
ship of mankind alone. The enemy is too great 
to be met with divided forces. 


(b) Union is essential to the full realization of 
the Christian character. We need the hymns of 
all writers to express our views and to waken us 
to fulness of worship. It is wrong to attempt to 
make churches according to type. No one should 
specialize in Christian virtues. As the apple needs 
substanee, form, color, flavor, ripeness, and beauty 
—all that earth, air, sun, darkness, dew and rain 
can give to make it perfect—so each one needs all 
the influence and revelation of Jesus Christ that 
may come out of all the churches. The greatest 
evil of sectarianism is that it excludes so much. 
It is exclusive instead of inclusive. The re-united 
Church will be the fountain of all good things, the 
homing place of all genuine saints. We want Mat- 
thew’s hope, Mark’s power, Luke’s humanity, 
John’s supernaturalism in the Church. We want 
Peter’s eloquence, Paul’s logic and literary power, 
James’ practical wisdom, Stephen’s consuming fire, 
and John’s visions and revelations in the Church. 


38 Tut DISCIPLES 


It will take the true saints of all the churches to 
make the true Chureh. Christian union will bring 
all the riches of faith and glory of character to- 
gether in each church and in each character. We 
cannot be made perfect without one another. 
‘¢ And these all having had witness borne to them 
through their faith, received not the promise, God 
having provided some better things concerning us, 
that apart from us they should not be made per- 
fect’’ (Heb. 11:39, 40). Nature is perfected by 
man and man is perfected by fellowship. 


(c) Christian union is essential to the fullest 
understanding of Jesus Christ. A broken mirror 
cannot reflect an object without distortion. A di- 
vided church can neither get the complete vision 
of Christ nor give his full image to the world. Sece- 
tarianism has a distorted view of Christ and of 
man. Through it the world can neither see God 
nor man as they are. A broken church gives broken 
views of truth and of God. 


(d) Finally, it is only the united Church that 
will be able to convert the world. Christian union 
is the shortest route to this spiritual achievement. 
Christian missions must come by the home field 
for Christian union must come there first. Jesus 
prayed: ‘‘That they may all be one; * * * * 
that the world may believe that Thou didst send 
me.’’ 


THE PROPOSAL OF THE DISCIPLES 39 


The Nature of the Union Proposed 

The organic union of different churches seems 
not to have been thought of at first by the pioneers. 
The notion was rather a co-operative association, 
a body somewhat analogous to the Federal Coun- 
ceil of the Churches of Christ, which is a unity 
movement through co-operation, with this dif- 
ference that ‘‘The Christian Association’’ of 
Thomas Campbell and his associates was composed 
of individuals out of all the churches rather than 
being a co-operative movement of the churches 
themselves. The influence and spirituality of such 
an association would quickly extend throughout the 
different bodies as has the Christian Endeavor So- 
ciety in our times. The full purpose and scope 
of this association was written out by Thomas 
Campbell and it has come down to us in a large 
tract called the ‘‘ Declaration and Address.’’ 


Dr. F. D. Kershner has recently written an able 
and fresh interpretation of this important Chris- 
tian union document. 

The Christian union proposed is not of the mak- 
ing of man. It must be of the mind and heart 
before it becomes organization and environment. 
Any union that is mechanical and not vital cannot 
last long and while it lasts its unreality will result 
in the starvation of the heart. 

1. The idea of union is given by Jesus Christ 
himself. He prayed for it amid the deepening 


40 THE DISCIPLES 


shadows of Gethsemane (John 17:20-24.). The 
unity described there is so profound that the hu- 
man mind can seareely follow it. It is metaphys- 
ical. It sounds the depths of personality. It calls 
for oneness in the midst of separateness. It is 
deeper than the dream of mystic or philosopher. 
It is more ecstatic than the rapture of seer or dev- 
otee. Yet on its outer rim we can see that it is 
(a) oneness of purpose, (b) oneness of will, (c) 
oneness of work, (d) and that its bond and seal is 
love—‘‘as Thou. lovedst me,’’ (John 17:28). 
From these things we understand that the very - 
essence of Christian union or unity—one and 
both—is love. According to Jesus Christ when 
Christians love one another they are united. And 
we know from observation that Christians of dif- 
ferent groups may and do love one another and 
that they work together to fulfill the purpose of 
Christ. In the view of it in Christ’s prayer it is 
not an ecclesiastical fixation that can be established 
by vote and canon but it is a relationship, a real- 
ity, that must be wrought out by prayer and tied 
together by the strongest force in the universe, 
love. 

2. St. Paul analyzes Christian union and points 
out its elements. This will be found in Ephesians 
4:4-6. (a) ‘‘There is one body’’—hence a visible 
union, all the members of the body working to- 
gether. They cannot exist unless they so work. 


THE PROPOSAL OF THE DISCIPLES 41 


(b) ‘‘One hope’’—which must be the hope of 
eternal redemption. In a large way it may be 
regarded as unity of desire and expectation in 
what we call idealism. (c) ‘‘One Spirit’’—the Holy 
Spirit given to all Christians, hence making them 
move by one common impulse. (d) ‘‘One Lord,’’ 
who is Jesus Christ. Christians must be one in ac- 
cepting him as the supreme authority in religion. 
The real test of a Christian and therefore of 
churches also, is whether they aecept Jesus as Lord. 
The crucial, practical doctrine of Christianity is 
the lordship of Christ. ‘‘Whatsoever you do in 
word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Je- 
sus.’’ (e) ‘‘One faith,’’ no doubt the faith em- 
bodied in the Good Confession made by Peter and 
commended by Christ and later witnessed by Jesus 
himself before Pontius Pilate: ‘‘Thou art the 
Christ, the Son of the living God.’’ (Matt. 16:15; 
1 Timothy 6:13). This faith was first lived by 
the apostles and then written down in the New 
Testament by inspiration as the rule of life, the 
incentive to practice. The ‘‘faith’’ is a body of 
doctrine; it is the attitude of the soul; it is the 
sum of one’s beliefs and trust. One in faith— 
polarized about Jesus Christ and God. (f) ‘‘One 
Baptism’’—that practiced by apostles, that ob- 
served by Jesus Christ himself. There are not 
many baptisms—there are not many forms of bap- 
tism. Christian union demands that we all prac- 


42 THE DISCIPLES 


tice the same thing here. This is not a matter of 
indifference and men are not permitted to change 
it at will. Citizenship is free but no citizen is 
entitled to change the stars and stripes to suit 
himself, nor to alter the oath of allegiance nor the 
ritual of expressing his citizenship. Baptism con- 
notes a profound inward change, but it also has 
its outward symbol. And Christians must use the 
same symbol for the sake of unity. Let no one 
tamper with the great seal of the kingdom. Christ 
appointed baptism and we must all practice the 
same substance and form of it. And the New 
Testament baptism is immersion. (g) ‘‘One God 
and Father of all’’—the transcendent God, who 
rules over all; the immanent God, who acts through 
all; the incarnate God, who dwells in all. 


This is a wonderful list of spiritual gifts we 
may enjoy, of spiritual glories to which we may 
attain. And it is remarkable, that nearly all Chris- 
tians agree on all these points—agree on them by 
believing and practicing, excepting on the ‘‘one 
body’’ and the ‘‘one baptism.’’ The Disciples pro- 
pose that both of these points be settled by the 
records of the New Testament studied naturally 
according to the laws of language and interpreted 
without prejudice by prayer and by the illumina- 
tion of the Holy Spirit. (See John 16:13.) 


3. All this shows that Christian union must be 
thought of as a great spiritual consummation, as 


THE PROPOSAL OF THE DISCIPLES 43 


an active expression of the new order of society in 
Jesus Christ. It was viewed in this light by Alex- 
ander Campbell who wrote: 


I never cherished a scheme so Utopian as the scheme 
of union which floats in the minds of some professors. 
Men unite not as masses, but as individuals. We come 
together one by one, not in nations nor organized masses. 
Parties, like nations, indeed, may hold an armistice—they 
may agree on a cessation of hostilities—they may even 
propose a reciprocity of kind offices—they may open their 
respective houses, pulpits, and communion tables to each 
other—they may form a confederation of communities to 
a certain extent; and still reserve certain peculiarities for 
further discussion. But as voluntary associations farther 
they cannot go. Yet this would be but an ecclesiastic, 
not a Christian union; and only a partial ecclesiastic 
union. Christian union is a more intimate, spiritual, 
celestial sort of thing, into which we can enter only in 
our individual capacity and upon our own individual 
responsibility. It presupposes closer acquaintance, stronger 
personal confidence, more spiritual attachment, a real 
oneness of spirit, a full coalescence of souls in the joint 
participation of the same Holy Spirit. 


While a satisfactory definition of Christian 
union is impossible at this time it may, neverthe- 
less, be of service to attempt it. The following is 
offered: A united Church would be one of which 
Christ is the confessed and accepted head; in 
which every member would be sensitively respon- 
sive to his will; where each would have liberty 
for the rightful use of his own personality— 
Godward, manward, selfward ; in which faith, hope 
and love awakened in the heart by the Spirit 


44 THE DISCIPLES 


through the Word would be the binding forces; 
and where all the members acted in such harmony 
that the sum total of their influence would be fully 
expressed for the promotion of the cause of Christ 
in the world and for spiritual suggestion, culture 
and comfort of the members themselves. 


Such a union would be inward, real, vital, sym- 
pathetic and creative—like the life that animates 
the body, like the life of God in the soul of man 
—instead of being mechanical, arbitrary, and so 
largely dominated by the human element, as at 
present. Outwardly there might be seams and 
even sections in organization, like the States of the 
union, but it would be an organism as well as an 
organization and the unity would be even a kind 
of mystical identity which would as occasion arose, 
express its life as the deep, rising, irresistible tide 
of American patriotism faced the World War. 


The Way to Union 


1. It will come by the actual acceptance of God’s 
word. As Thomas Campbell wrote 114 years ago: 


This desirable rest, however, we utterly despair either 
to find for ourselves, or to be able to recommend to our 
brethren, by continuing amid the diversity and rancor 
of party contentions, the veering uncertainty and clash- 
ings of human opinions: nor, indeed, can we reasonably 
expect to find it anywhere but in Christ and his simple 
Word, which is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 
Our desire, therefore, for ourselves and our brethren would 
be, that, rejecting human opinions and the inventions of 


THE PROPOSAL OF THE DISCIPLES 45 


men as of any authority, or as having any place in the 
Church of God, we might forever cease from further con- 
tention about such things; returning to and holding fast 
by the original standard; taking the divine word alone 
for our rule; The Holy Spirit for our teacher and guide, 
to lead us into all truth; and Christ alone, as exhibited 
in the word, for our salvation; that, by so doing, we may 
be at peace among ourselves, follow peace with all men, 
and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. 

2. No doubt Christian union will be largely 
worked out through co-operation. There must be 
actual association before there can be genuine 
union. Personal fellowship and appreciation must 
be practiced. Co-operation in good works of ev- 
ery kind will help wear away the sharp corners, 
overcome the strangeness and awkwardness of con- 
tact, and produce the Christian love and the unity 
of the spirit in the bond of peace. Not far away 
then will be real Christian union. This course 
would save Christians from the attempt ‘‘to sec- 
tarianize the truth and dismember Jesus Christ.’’ 


3. Union will come by the influence of the Holy 
Spirit. We shall be led of the Spirit when we ear- 
nestly study and pray to be so led. We may say 
reverently, that that is God’s active part today in 
bringing his people into the rich and satisfying 
experience of Christian union. 

4. Taking the example of the Master as guide 
surely the plainest pathway to Christian union is 
prayer. Any union effected without that will be 
but a mechanical human arrangement which will 


46 THE DISCIPLES 


make the case worse rather than better. Church 
statesmanship is to be used but prayer must be 
the largest element in it. Prayer melts away pride 
and self-will and enlightens the mind. It lifts the 
heart into the experience of God and suffuses it 
with his purposes. Christian union will come by 
way of the closet of praying Christians. 


The Progress of the Proposal 

1. The progress of Christian union in the world 
has been very marked and very encouraging. 
While there are more sects than there were a hun- 
dred years ago there is not nearly so much sectari- 
anism. The churches love each other and their an- 
tipathies are not so strong nor so bitter. It may be 
that we are much nearer the goal than we dream. 
The effort to achieve Christian union has had its 
hindrances and drawbacks, perhaps at times the 
plea itself has been too much specialized but still 
it has marched on. 

2. Once the Disciples were alone in preaching 
Christian union but practically the whole Chris- 
tian world is preaching it now. The desire for 
Christian union has reached such a stage that it 
is doubtful whether any other subject is as thor- 
oughly and widely discussed in Christendom. This 
is because Christian union is, after all, not the 
task of any one group of Christian people alone. 
It belongs to all. Furthermore it is Christ’s plea; 
yea, it is his prayer. 


THE PROPOSAL OF THE DISCIPLES 47 


3. The plea of the Disciples is also justified by 
the progress of the world. The whole trend today 
is toward united action. Experience both in the 
Church and in the world demonstrates the necessity 
of union as a basis for democracy and for progress. 


The Future of the Proposal 

One of the greatest problems of the Disciples is 
to maintain a separate existence and yet be able to 
push their proposal for Christian union effectively. 
Two dangers confront them here—the danger of 
ineffectiveness and the danger of sectarianism. 

1. The first danger is due to the seeming incon- 
sistency of being a separate, aggressive body and 
still urging union. Yet it is only by separate ex- 
istence that they can gain attention. An idea must 
become incarnate in order to be effective. It is 
possible, in fact it seems the only way, to form a 
body for the preaching of a truth to others and at 
the same time hold the group in such a state of 
mind and heart that it will accept its own proposi- 
tion when the hour is ripe for it. This can be done 
by keeping the eyes on the true goal. An army 
fights for peace—it is aggressive, destructive, the 
very opposite of peace. But the moment arrives 
when everybody is willing to accept peace and then 
the order to ‘‘cease firing’’ is given. Of course, 
somebody is conquered, gives in. In the ease of 
Christian union everybody becomes conquered by 


48 THE DISCIPLES 


the love of Christ and all ‘‘give in’’ whole-heart- 
edly to Jesus Christ. 


2. The other phase of our problem is to avoid 
sectarianism in our own hearts. There is a great 
temptation to this, especially when there is rapid 
growth and the manifest blessing of God upon the 
work of our hands. “But that very fact should keep 
us humble. It should keep us in the love of 
God, which is the souree of our love for 
our fellowman. Conviction that we are right 
in our views ought to work out a broad and 
generous feeling toward others. Besides this, no 
one is ever in the right when he is sectarian in 
spirit. Truth is always perverted when attempt is 
made consciously or unconsciously to sectarianize 
it. We can avoid the steel-trap of sectarianism by 
sincerely ‘‘practicing the presence of God,’’ by 
using truly ‘‘the means of grace’’ given for the 
education of the soul. In addition to this we must 
keep our hearts set on the great issue of Christian 
union and earnestly pray that Christ will raise up 
many others to make this plea, and we must be 
ready to move out with all the rest when the way 
is plain. 

3. There are several union propositions before 
the world now. There is the Roman Catholic, 
which means absorption of all Christians into their 
body. This is impossible, unthinkable. There is 
the Anglican or Episcopal, which means the ac- 


THe PROPOSAL OF THE DISCIPLES 49 


ceptance of their orders, their ministry and the 
historic episcopate. There is the proposition 
known as the Philadelphia Plan, which contem- 
plates a central overhead authority with the recog- 
nition of the common practice of all the churches 
of today; and there is that of our own Church, 
which is union on confession of faith in Jesus 
Christ as the Son of the Living God and the ac- 
ceptance of the New Testament as the only ‘au- 
thoritative interpretation of that confession and 
of the principles of worship and organization. 

4. The proposal has not been outgrown. It has 
not been discounted by any changes in theology, 
church or society. It has not been altered in any 
respect by the astounding growth of science and 
invention. We must still preach it and live it. 

The plea of the Disciples will finally prevail if it 
is Christ’s way. And it must be Christ’s way,— 
it is certainly in accord with Christ’s way, for he 
prayed long and earnestly somewhere between the 
Upper Room and Gethsemane ‘‘for them also that 
believe on me through their word; that they may 
all be one.’’? Our stubborn sectarianism, our fond 
denominationalism, our errors and our pride can- 
not hold out against that great, blood-crimsoned, 
Intercessory prayer of the Master who loved the 
Church and gave himself up for it. 


CHAPTER III 
DOCTRINE OF THE DISCIPLES 


HE Disciples teach that God is our Father 

in heaven, according to the reverent and 
loving words of Christ; that Jesus Christ is his 
Son and the Savior of sinners; that the Holy 
Spirit is the comforter, revealer and interpreter of 
God’s word and God’s way, given to all who obey 
God and ask for him; that man in his natural state 
does not know God and must be born again in 
order to enter the Kingdom of heaven; and that 
man will live forever and be rewarded according 
to the deeds done in the body. They believe that 
God so loved the world that he gave his only be- 
gotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should 
not perish, but have eternal life. They believe 
that Jesus Christ died on the eross to save sinners. 
They believe in the Church and in the Kingdom 
of God. 


A Doctrine Without a Creed 


Yet the Disciples have no written authoritative 
statement of doctrine. Why? It is not because 
‘they do not believe most of the statements in the 
creeds, but because’ sey regard the dogmatic creeds 
as having been divisive and as continuing so; and 
that whatever may have been their influence in the 


50 


DOCTRINE OF THE DISCIPLES ol 
past they have served their day. When the New 
Testament was not accessible to the people, and 
they needed some kind of interpretation to aid 
them in understanding duty and divine things, the 
ereed rendered a service. Five things may be said 
against the use of authoritative, written creeds 
today. 

First, they are divisive. History proves this and 
the use of them today will likewise demonstrate it. 


Second, they are not comprehensive enough. 
They leave too many things unsaid and thus they 
fall short of the demands and developments of the 
Christian life. 

Third, they need perpetual revision, which is 
equal to saying they are not mobile, adaptable, nor 
fundamental. They have a tendency to substitute 
partial truths for full truths. If they were fun- 
damental, useful and permanent, they would fit 
without any revision into the growing life and 
changing times, just as gravity, air, light and 
heat automatically adapt themselves to any physical 
conditions that can arise. 

Fourth, they work against unprejudiced thought 
and hinder freedom of utterance. These things 
have always been priceless beliefs cherished by 
the Disciples. They have held most strenuously to 
the right of private opinion ar the sacredness and 
duty of honest, clear thinking, as far as one is 
equal to it. 


52 THE DISCIPLES 


Fifth, when the New Testament became widely 
circulated and accessible to all, it was not necessary 
that there should be any other written statements 
setting forth Christianity in an authoritative way. 
Instead of belief in a creed the Disciples urge be- —— 
lief in Jesus Christ. Christianity is not embodied 
in a proposition, it lives in a person. 


Sufficiency of the New Testament 


The Disciples have always held to the New Testa- 
ment as a sufficiently simple and clear statement 
of the contents of a Christian’s privilege and duty. 

It was a saying of one of the early interpreters 
of the Disciples, that if the creed contains more 
than the Bible it contains too much, if it contains 
less than the Bible it contains too little, if it con- 
tains exactly what the Bible contains it is unneces- 
sary for we have the Bible itself. If one reads, 
digests, and believes what is contained in the 
New Testament he will have both the doctrine and 
the spirit of Christianity. St. John wrote at the 
end of his gospel: ‘‘Many other signs therefore did 
Jesus in the presence of the disciples, which are not 
written in this book: but these are written, that ye 
may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of 
God; and that believing ye may have life in his 
name.’’ (John 20:30, 31). 

The Bible is to be thought of as the written 
standard of authority. Disciples are accustomed to 
say, ‘“Where the Scriptures speak we speak and 


DOCTRINE OF THE DISCIPLES Oo 


where the Scriptures are silent we are silent.’’ 
No doubt there are many things in the Bible which 
must be explained but this is better done by the 
living voice than by the dogmatic utterance of any 
ehurch council or the stereotyped statement of any 
ereed. The rights and duties of all men and espe- 
cially of Christians are clearly set out in the New 
Testament. ; 

The gospel of Christ contains the theology of 
Christians. It is a living, vital message full of fire 
and life-giving force. As far as it is possible to 
analyze a living force the gospel was analyzed by 
Walter Scott who said it consists of facts to be be- 
lieved, commands to be obeyed and promises to be 
enjoyed. 

These ideas show us that the Disciples are not a 
theological people. They have always resisted 
making a theology out of the gospel or an ecclesias- 
ticism out of the brotherhood. The management 
of their lives is not so much by line upon line and 
precept upon precept as it is by the inspiration 
of the truth, and the presence of the Master. They 
seek to move by the direct word of God and the 
leadings of the Holy Spirit. They regard Chris- 
tianity as a way of life rather than a system of 
philosophy, or a scheme of science. As a way of life 
it is set forth by the words and example of Christ 
and his apostles, which are the final, full and sat- 
isfactory utterances of all things necessary to be 


54. THE DISCIPLES 


preached, believed, and practiced in order to the 
fulfillment of earth’s duties and the enjoyment of 
eternal blessedness. 


Faith in a Person 


The Disciples teach faith in a person rather than 
belief of a theological proposition. They would 
give a vital message rather than offer a logical 
scheme; a living doctrine rather than a mere in- 
teresting history. 

In a true sense no group of Christians has more 
persistently preached the essential doctrines of 
Christianity than have the Disciples. But they 
have drawn these doctrines directly from the New 
Testament and connected them with Jesus Christ 
as their test and center of gravity. The essence 
of the religious life is to follow him. The end of 
the religious effort is to reach the goal he has 
pointed out. The Disciples have no creed but 
Christ, no book but the Bible, no aim but to serve. 
Their confession of faith is that of Peter, as he 
looked into the face of the Master, who was en- 
couraging him to say what was in his heart: ‘‘Thou 
art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.’’ 
(Matt. 16:16.) That is the only doctrinal procla- 
mation required of a man who would enter into 
the Church and it is required of him that he bring 
his life openly into harmony with Jesus Christ’s 
teaching and example. Does he obey Christ as his 
Savior? That is enough. That is the beginning 


DocTRINE OF THE DISCIPLES a 


of the new life in public. It exalts Christ as the 
Lord of life and the hope of all aims, and dreams, 
and visions. The true theology is Jesus Christ 
himself. He said: ‘‘ He that hath seen me hath seen 
the Father.’’ That was the Master’s statement of 
truth. The fatherly side of God, the secret and 
standard of character, and redeeming love are all 
incarnate in Christ. He was God manifest in the 
flesh. He is all and in all for all true doctrine. 


Doctrine and Apologetics 

Perhaps a word should be said here relative to 
the controversies that have been in the world from 
the beginning and that are disturbing the peace 
of many today. 

First, as to naturalism and miracles, the Disci- 
ples believe in miracles; in a supernatural reli- 
gion; in a divine Christ; and in a living, loving, 
ever present God. 

Regarding revelation and rationalism, they be- 
lieve in a Bible inspired of God; that the world ean 
only be saved by the death and sufferings of Christ ; 
in a life nourished by the teachings of the New 
Testament; and by the indwelling of the Holy 
Spirit. They have freely used reason to deal with 
the facts of Christianity. They believe God must 
be loved with the mind, as well as with the heart, 
and that Christianity is a reasonable religion. 
Every one must give a reason for the faith that 


56 THe DISCIPLES 


is in him. Faith itself is the higher reason and it 
is based upon the supernatural. 

They have regarded such questions as election, 
predestination and the old controversies about free- 
will and foreordination matters of opinion. 

The consensus of views would no doubt relegate 
evolution to the realm of science and philosophy 
and, so long as men see it as the way God works, 
the majority would accept it in some form, though 
some would reject it entirely. But neither the ac- 
ceptance nor rejection of it would impair one’s 
standing as a Christian or as a good church mem- 
ber. 


These things are but saying that the Disciples 
have avoided mere speculative thought except as 
a personal matter, that they have discerned strictly 
between matters of opinion and matters of faith. 
Thus the many controversies that have agitated 
others have seareely touched them. Such questions 
as premillennialism or postmillennialism have 
never broken their ranks nor created much discus- 
sion nor disturbance. The facts of the second 
coming of Christ, the future life with its rewards 
and punishments, are preached and believed and 
life is controlled accordingly. No mere theory is 
ever made a test of fellowship or of the integrity 
of the religious life. 


This produces some conservatism and desirable 


DOCTRINE OF THE DISCIPLES 57 


homogeneity while allowing freedom of discussion 
and therefore steady and genuine progress. 


Nature of Christianity 

The views of the Disciples on the nature of Chris- 
tianity may be stated, without authority, but 
simply as an interpretation, as follows: 

Christianity is the life created by the influence 
of Jesus Christ working in the individuals: and 
society of the human race. Its essence is spirit, its 
fruit is life, its purpose is to redeem man from sin 
and to grow him into the measure of the stature 
of fulness in Christ Jesus. Christianity is ex- 
pressed in the realm of history and human experi- 
ence in five aspects: 

1. Christianity is doctrinal. Therefore it has a 
book. 

In this form it is definite revelation. It is the 
deposit of the eternal in literature by the Spirit of 
God through the mind, speech, pen and action of 
human beings as teaching, history, precept and 
suggestion. Its supreme and authoritative state- 
ment is in the New Testament. We say the New 
Testament, because all that is permanent and uni- 
versal in the Old Testament has been brought 
over into the New Testament through the life of 
Christ, and in a more spiritual form. Christianity 
is, and always will be, the religion of a book as 
well as the religion of the spirit. 

2. Christianity is spiritual. (John 4:23, 24.) 


58 Tok DISCIPLES 


It therefore must have both ritual and prayer. 
For this expression of it we have (a) baptism; (b) 
the Lord’s Supper; and (c) what is generally 
ealled ‘‘the order of public worship.’’ The latter 
is a perpetual but varying and adaptable form, and 
means that the feelings, sentiments, purposes and 
aspirations of the soul can be organized in a way 
that will increase their depth in experience and 
their power in social application. The deepest 
things in the soul are set out, visualized, made 
facts, in the ordinances which are unchangeable 
and in the order of the services which is variable 
according to conditions and desires. The order of 
the services, the expressional form of worship, is 
man’s free part in ritual. 


The rites of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are 
Christ’s fixed power in the soul’s confessional. 


The action of the soul in these forms is social, 
sacramental, experimental, rational and mystical. 
These ordinances harmonize the unrestrained, free- 
flowing love that forever lies at the heart of the 
gospel and the unbendable, inflexible law that in- 
heres like iron in the moral order. They leave the 
action of the human will free but make blessed re- 
sults certain. 


These formal and ritual aspects of the gospel 
must be maintained as well as the other phases of 
Christianity. In the ordinances the human spirit 
and the divine are acting in harmony to the great 


DOCTRINE OF THE DISCIPLES 59 


end of the purification and redemption of man’s 
soul, 


3. Christianity is institutional. This is seen in 
the Chureh and the subsidiary bodies that grow 
out of its creative life. The Church at its highest 
and best is the social organ of the Holy Spirit. 

It purifies the individual and society, oahu 
it is sacramental. 

It maintains and inspires preaching, therefore it 
is the agent of the living Word. 

It creates, fosters and directs fellowship, there- 
fore it is social. 

It teaches the living truth as ideal ethic and 
authority, therefore it is a rational, character- 
building energy. 

It kindles and directs the spirit of worship, 
therefore it is a mystical influence. 

It inspires and directs good works in the world, 
therefore it is a beneficent, social organism. 

It cultivates the heart-life of humanity, there- 
fore it is the spring of kindness, charity, sentiment 
and love. 

It rallies forces and fights the evils of this world, 
therefore it is the power-house of reformations. 

It buries the dead with the ritual of faith and 
hope, therefore it is the apostle of immortality. 

In it membership is perpetual, for time and 
eternity, therefore it becomes the assembly and 
Church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven. 


60 THE DISCIPLES 


Could there be Christianity at all without the 
Church? Can men be brotherly without the brood- 
ing spirit of a brotherhood? 


4. Christianity is ethical. The Disciples have al- 
ways laid great stress upon good works not as a 
means of salvation for the individual but rather as 
the expression of the life that dwells in him. As 
naturally as the tree blossoms and bears fruit be- 
cause it is rooted in the earth, so naturally will a 
Christian perform good deeds because his life is 
rooted in Jesus Christ and because he has the won- 
derful experience of the life of God in his own 
soul. | 


5. The supreme expression of Christianity is Je- 
sus Christ himself and next to him it is to be seen 
in living men and women who are like him. Christ 
relives his life in his people. They were created 
unto good works. God reveals himself, his works 
and his acts in this world, at least partly, through 
human personality. The heavenly treasure is in 
earthen vessels. 


6. All these expressions of Christianity co-oper- 
ate to produce the same end. ‘They all mean 
something. The power of Christianity is weak- 
ened, its beauty marred, its fulness prevented by 
leaving out any of the phases, doctrine, worship, 
ritual, institution, or ethic. If we leave out the 
doctrinal we prevent men from loving God with the 
mind; if the ritual and ordinance, we impair the 


DOCTRINE OF THE DISCIPLES 61 


heart qualities of religion; and if we neglect the 
Church as an organization we weaken the power 
that promotes Christianity, and destroy its sweet 
and satisfying fellowships. There must be no miss- 
ing links in the golden chain that binds us to God. 

Above all, we must gather into our own personal, 
spiritual activities every power, privilege, duty, 
experience and aspect of Christianity. In this way 
alone can we come to the fulness of character in 
Christ. | 

The doctrine of the Disciples is to be interpreted 
by the work of the Disciples. They have held al- 
most a puritanic view of morals without which 
profession has seemed to them hypocrisy. The real 
Christian is the hope of Christianity. Each con- 
version is a heart-beat from the throne. It prof- 
its a man nothing to have the profession without 
the deed, the form without the power, the sem- 
blance without the reality. This practical view of 
the Christian life has made the Disciples an ex- 
eeedingly active people in all good reforms, in law 
enforcement, in evangelism and religious education, 
as well as driving them to root their faith deeper 
in the eternal heart. 


The Disciples and Mysticism 


The Disciples are by no means merely a prag- 
matie people. They believe in the perpetual pres- 
ence and indwelling of Christ, of the Holy Spirit 
and of God. They declare against the legalistic and 


62 Tur DISCIPLES 


literalistic aspects of the Christian life and believe 
that prayer is real. As the child can approach and 
understand the father on earth so the Christian 
can. speak to his Father who is in heaven. As the 
child may ask for and receive bread from its 
parents so the child of God may ask for and re- 
ceive the Holy Spirit. 

God’s beauty, his love, his reality, his revelation 
may be expressed through human life. In him we 
live and move and have our being. He is near to 
all that call upon him. Christ is the great com- 
panion in sickness, sorrow, life, struggle, tempta- 
tion and death. The life beyond is a larger and 
more wonderful room in the Father’s house of 
many mansions. Every man will have his chance 
to reach this home. This is also part of the faith 
of the Disciples. Consequently there have been 
found high types of Christian character and beau- 
tiful examples of sainthood among them and they 
are steadily growing in the sacrificial hife and its 
joy. Doctrine, we hope, is steadily transmuted into 
life and ever out-blossoming in light and beauty 
on the Godward side. Their saints are not clois- 
tered and cassocked but they are out in the turmoil 
of life garbed like other men—crusaders, martyrs 
and the consecrated whose daily work is divine 
service—like Dr. Albert L. Shelton who gave his 
life through his profession and Robert H. Stockton 
who gave his life through his fortune. 


CHAPTER IV 
THE BIBLE AND ITS USE 


HE word Bible means book. But it has for cen- 

turies referred to a special collection of writ- 
ings, which the brightest minds and most devout 
people have considered divinely inspired. This 
collection of writings was first called the Holy Bible 
by Chrysostom, the famous Greek preacher. The 
names found in the book itself are Oracles, Serip- 
ture and Covenant. (Rom. 3:1, 2; Heb. 5:12; 1 
Peter 4:11; Acts 7:38; 2 Timothy 3 :14-17; 2 Peter 
3:16; Hebrews 8:13.) 


What the Bible Is 


The Bible consists of two general sections called 
the Old and the New Testament respectively. The 
Old Testament contains thirty-nine books, the New 
Testament twenty-seven. F. Godet compared the 
Bible to a great temple with sixty-six different 
rooms, each one of which is filled with divine light. 
That means that this book is to be thought of as the 
word of God. It contains literature of every kind 
and there is universal agreement that even in that 
respect it is not excelled by writers in any tongue. 
But these forms of language are only vehicles, for 
the supreme purpose of the Bible is to reveal God 
to man as his Father and Friend in order that 


63 


64 THE DISCIPLES 


man’s soul may be saved and his conduct be made 
righteous. John Watson has very fittingly called 
the Bible God’s Message to the Human Soul. The 
Bible is to be considered a divine revelation. 

A brief analysis will aid us in grasping the scope 
and nature of the Bible from a literary point of 
view. 


The Old Testament is generally distributed into the 
three great divisions: 


I. The law which consists of the first five books; 


II. The prophets—including Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, 
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the twelve minor proph- 
ets; and 


Ill. The writings which have sometimes been called the wis- 
dom literature. 


This section includes the three poetical books: Job, 
Psalms, and Proverbs; in addition, the Song of Solomon, 
Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, 
Nehemiah and Chronicles. 


The law-books exhibit the fundamental covenant with 
its legal sanctions and conditions, whereby Israel was set 
apart and kept apart for the execution of the divine pur- 
pose. The prophets exhibit the unfolding of the purpose 
in the history, and emphasize the spiritual aspect and 
abiding conditions of the covenant. And the writings in 
various tones, reproduce as in the Psalms, the answer of 
the human soul to God’s voice, or, as in Proverbs and 
Job, the questionings and reasonings of the spirit as it 
turns its regard inwards upon itself. 

The New Testament may be divided as follows: 


I. Historical—Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts. 


II. Didactic—Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 
Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessa- 
lonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, 
James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1 and 2 and 3 John and Jude. 


III. Prophetical—the book of Revelation. 


All of these wonderful productions find their center 
and draw their light and fire from Jesus Christ our Lord. 


THE BIBLE AND Its USE 65 


The four gospels narrate his life and glorious works on 
earth. Acts tells how the new life, that came from him 
through the preaching of the Word and by the gift of the 
Holy Spirit, passed from Jerusalem to Rome; the epistles 
set forth the significance of the gospel facts, revealed 
according to our Lord’s promise, John 16:12, 13. The 


book of Revelation shows the Lamb as King, reveals a 


prophetic vision of the struggle between right and wrong, 
and shows how Jesus is to become Victor on earth, to- 
gether with his Church.—Adapted from The Concise Bible 
Dictionary. i 


The Origin of the Bible 


The Bible was given to man by divine inspira- 
tion. That is why it is a revelation of God. In- 
spiration and revelation are related to each other 
as life and expression. The life in the tree ex- 
presses itself in leaf, flower and fruit. Inspira- 
tion is the inbreathing of God by the Holy Spirit. 
Revelation is the vision or body of doctrine and 
idea created by inspiration. This revelation comes 
to us in many forms; in individual lives, in great 
epochs of history, in providence, in such organiza- 
tions as the Church, in religious assemblies, but 
especially in men like the prophets, the apostles, 
the psalmists and the evangelists, who fully put 
themselves at the service of God, to be used by him 
in his special work at whatever cost in labor and 
suffering. 

It would be wide of the mark to enter into detail 
respecting the nature of inspiration. Let us hold 
to the fact and accept the word of the divinely in- 


66 THE DISCIPLES 


spired writer. The author of the letter to the He- 
brews says: ‘‘Many were the forms and fashions 
in which God spoke of old to our fathers by the 
prophets, but in these days at the end he has 
spoken to us by a Son.’’ (Hebrews 1:1, 2. Mof- 
fatt.) 


Peter bears testimony in like manner, 2 Peter 
1:16-21; ‘‘For it was no fabricated fables that we 
followed when we reported to you the power and 
advent of our Lord Jesus Christ ; we were admitted 
to the spectacle of his sovereignty, when he was 
invested with honour and glory by God the Father 
and when the following voice was borne to him 
from the sublime Glory, ‘This is my son, the Be- 
loved, in whom I delight.’ That voice borne from 
heaven we heard, we who were beside him on the 
sacred hill, and thus we have gained fresh confirm- 
ation of the prophetic word. Pray attend to that 
. word; it shines like a lamp within a darksome spot, 
till the day dawns and the day-star rises within 
your hearts—understanding this, at the outset, 
that no prophetic scripture allows a man to inter- 
pret it by himself; for prophecy never came by 
human impulse, it was when carried away by the 
Holy Spirit that the holy men of God spoke.’’ 
(Moffatt. ) 

Paul says unequivocally in 2 Timothy 3:16, 
‘‘All seripture is inspired by God.’’ (Moffatt.) 


THE BIBLE AND Its USE 67 


The Truth of the Bible 

This is established in many ways, logical, prac- 
tical, experimental and intuitional. 

1. Considering the efforts made to destroy it, the 
neglect it has suffered, the misuse of it, the texts 
that are wrested, its survival proclaims it divine. 


Even nations have tried to destroy it but it has 
lived. 


2. The second proof of its truth is its unity. 
It was written by different men of different coun- 
tries who had no converse with each other. The 
times of these writings covered about forty cen- 
turies. Yet the Bible is a perfect unity in its 
teachings and ideals. There were many mediums 
of revelation; there was only one Revealer. 


3. Its reasonableness is another evidence of its 
origin in the divine mind. There is nothing foolish, 
weak or trivial in its pages and its supreme in- 
terest is in the joys and sorrows, in the well-being 
of men and women. It demands justice and fair- 
play for all. It may be said to be the book of the 
poor and weak, as against the tyrannical and self- 
ish. It is a democratic book, it is the people’s book. 
When it has been exclusively the book of the priest, 
the university and even of the preacher or the 
Church, it has been misused. It is the people’s 
book, God’s word to them in their own tongues, the 
greatest trust democracy ever held. 

4, But most of all we judge of its inspiration 


68 Tue DISCIPLES 


by its results. Coleridge said he believed the Bible 
to be inspired because it inspired him. It could 
not produce what was not within itself. Reading 
the Bible, men will grow better. They will be en- 
lightened. They will be taught the way of life. 

We are perpetual witnesses to this miraculous 
power of the Bible. When obeyed it brings to pass 
the results predicted by itself. Its fruits are the 
proofs of its infallibility within the sphere and 
range set out for itself. The criticisms about 
verbal, plenary, static and dynamic inspiration are 
generally of little profit. It is hair-splitting and 
speculating which tend to destroy the spirit of 
obedience. Does the Bible accomplish what it 
claims to be able to accomplish? Millions of con- 
verted people answer in the affirmative. Then the 
Bible must be what it claims to be—the Word of 
God. 

5. The Bible is a good book. It makes those 
who read it better. It is fit to have been given by 
a good God, a loving Father. 


Purpose of the Bible 

There are two great sources of mistake in using 
the Bible. One is in failing to divide it rightly 
considering to whom it is addressed and applying 
to the saints what belongs to the sinner and ap- 
plying to sinners what belongs to saints. The 
other mistake is failing to understand the purpose 
of the Bible. It was intended to be a revelation 


THE BIBLE AND Its USE 69 


of God. ‘‘In the beginning God,’’—these are the 
first words of the Book. It answers, as no other 
book possibly can, the question ‘‘What and Where 
is God?’’ (Psalm 139; Matt. 6:9; John 4:21-24; 
John 14:7-10.) It is the history of God’s dealings 
with men. As we follow the Bible through all its 
wonderful pages we are taught the reality and 
personality of God, of the Holy Spirit and of Jesus 
Christ. 

The Bible is not a book on farming, chemistry, 
geology, astronomy or on any science, though all 
these are suggested in it. But it reveals God and 
how to find him; Jesus Christ and how to obey 
him. It is a book on how to live here, how to pre- 
pare to live forever, how to die and how eventually 
to see God face to face. St. Paul declared: ‘‘ All 
Seripture is inspired by God and profitable for 
teaching, for reproof, for amendment, and for 
moral discipline, to make the man of God proficient 
and equip him for good work of every kind.’’ (2 
Timothy 3:16, 17, Moffatt.) 


Leading Ideas of the Bible 


We can only indicate a few of these, but merely 
to mention them becomes an education to us. The 
Bible shows us the personality and greatness of 
God. It deals with the origin, experience and des- 
tiny of man. It gives us the key to the meaning 
of personality and its possibilities. It reveals the 
way to the forgiveness of sins. It is the only re- 


70 THE DISCIPLES 


liable and reasonable source of knowledge about 
immortality and life beyond the grave. It teaches 
us the mystery, the personality and the power of 
the Holy Spirit. It reveals to man the awfulness 
of wrongdoing and is perfectly inflexible in the 
revelation of man’s accountability. If he does 
well he will be rewarded, if he does wrong his sin 
will find him out. No book so thoroughly and tre- 
mendously shows the destruction that follows the 
wrongdoer and finally overtakes him and brings 
him to the bar of justice. It points out this world 
to us as a Vamty Fair and teaches us that the 
things we see are temporal, while the things of the 
Spirit, which we do not see, are eternal. It gives 
us the substance of ethics, teaching us that justice, 
kindness and mercy are the fitting things for man 
to pursue. It teaches us how to live together hap- 
pily and is thus the secret of society. It shows us 
that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. 


Power of the Bible 


No other book ever written approaches the Bible 
in influence and power over the human mind and 
the human heart. This has been recognized gen- 
erally by great writers and thinkers. 

1. The Bible is a book of education. We find in 
it all the materials that tend to awaken thought, 
kindle emotion, stir up aspiration and develop 
character. It builds human personality. No man 
can read it and remain ignorant. Something of its 


THE BIBLE AND Its USE a 


own power passes into the spirit of him who dwells 
upon its quiet, luminous pages. Ruskin declared 
that he was indebted to the Bible for his style. 
Daniel Webster was so wedded to its study that he 
was called ‘‘the Bible concordance of the Senate.’’ 
Webster’s love of the Bible was inherited from his 
mother, and his memory was tenacious. It has 
been said that the Bible ‘‘formed his style as. an 
orator,’’ and the same is true in a large measure 
of Lincoln and of Gladstone, the great English 
statesman. These and many more famous men in 
public lfe—poets, orators and others—have built 
their fame upon their familiarity with and their 
love of the Bible. 


2. It contains in an excellent degree the quality 
of consolation. It was called by the French hu- 
manist, Renan, ‘‘humanity’s book of consolation.’’ 
No matter through what sorrow one has passed, 
nor through what he must go, no matter the trial, 
_ temptation or hardship, the Bible will give con- 
solation. It does this by the teaching and by 
examples showing that God never fails man in any 
trial. It ‘‘shines through the gloom and points us 
to the skies.’’ 

3. It converts men from darkness to light. ‘‘The 
law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.’’ 
We have many instances where men have read the 
Bible and instantly changed the course of their 


72 THE DISCIPLES 


lives as a result. The standing examples are Au- 
gustine and Martin Luther. 

4. It is the secret of great preachers. The Bible 
is the preacher’s source book. When he spends his 
days and nights over it, he receives the truth to 
be delivered, and he glows with the spirit, flame 
and fire that belonged to the apostles. But above 
all he is brought into communion with God and 
goes forth with the divine passion urgent in his 
soul. 

5. The Bible has never been exhausted. It is 
the master-book that grows other books. It con- 
tains the germ of newspapers, schools, universities, 
architecture, oratory, music, law and medicine. 
Out of it have grown whole libraries. Without it 
such books as Pilgrim’s Progress never would have 
been written. A literary man has found five hun- 
dred direct and indirect quotations from the Bible 
in Shakespeare. It is the inspirer and guide of 
creat men. It is the builder of institutions, and 
it is the secret of the greatest nations of all history. 


How to Study the Bible 


Here we will indicate some of the ways in which 
to go through the Bible. The young Christian 
should start with the intention of making it his 
daily companion throughout his whole life. Some 
books are read once and dismissed, some will be 
for childhood, some for youth and some for man- 
hood and old age. Most of these the Christian 


THE BIBLE AND ITs USE 13 


will outgrow but the Bible is to be a daily com- 
panion to him, from the cradle to the grave. It is 
therefore well to learn how to read it, how to use 
it, and how to divide it rightly, that it may bring 
the proper result in the life. 


1. The Bible should be read through many times 
in the order in which we have it. In that way a 
general outline of it will form in the mind, and 
its atmosphere and light will linger about the mem- 
ory of the heart. Many people make it a habit to 
read the entire Book every year. 

2. It is profitable to read an entire book at a 
sitting and to study each book as a whole till the 
Bible has been thus gone through. 

3. The Bible may be read simply as good read- 
ing. As one of America’s great men says: ‘‘There 
is no other book so interesting.’’ Just from that 
standpoint, what orations, for example, surpass 
those of Moses? What dramatic literature the 
book of Job? What hymns are as good as the 
twenty-third Psalm? What poetry is better than 
the Song of Solomon? What sermons outrank 
those of Isaiah? And the story of Jesus is match- 
less from every approach of men or of angels. 

4, The Bible may be studied doctrinally. It is 
its own theology and its own explanation, and one 
may spend a lifetime formulating the doctrines it 
suggests. 

5. Another way to go through the Bible is by 


74 THE DISCIPLES 


its great characters. From first to last its interest 
radiates from great men and women. And no 
other character-studies ever written are so vivid 
or striking, so instructive or so completely full of 
human interest as the personalities in the Bible. 


6. It should be read devotionally. One reads for 
communion with God; to learn the difference be- 
tween right and wrong; and to educate his own 
heart with noble purpose and splendid vision. 
Those who study after this fashion will be sur- 
prised to find how much of the Bible is prayer. 
Like a golden thread, it runs all through the won- 
derful book. The Bible never loses the sense of 
dependence upon God, and of God’s goodness to 
man. 

7. It can be studied profitably by the different 
forms of civilization, the different modes of society, 
and the different countries under which its writers 
lived and wrote their words immortal. 

8. A popular way of studying the Bible is by 
covenants or dispensations. For example, the dis- 
pensation from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abra- 
ham, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to 
Christ, who made God’s eternal covenant with 
man, unfolding thus God’s purposes in humanity. 
(Hebrews 13:20.) The covenant is one of the fun- 
damental ideas of the Bible and one of the most 
suggestive. 


9. The Bible may be studied topically; as for 


THE BIBLE AND Its USE nD 


example, the light it throws upon civilization, upon 
questions of war and peace, and upon the ideas 
of orthodoxy and heterodoxy, upon character and 
upon life and death. 


10. A valuable way to go through the Bible to- 
day would be with reference to the existing con- 
ditions in State, Church and Society. It is a book 
of social service. The prophets of Israel, espe- 
cially, dealt in a most thorough way with the very 
questions that are arising now between rich and 
poor—questions of labor, and property, and money. 
One is almost surprised when he studies the Bible 
with that as the guiding principle, to find that the 
struggle for social justice is so completely and 
luminously treated. 


11. Another fruitful line of study would be the 
rise and fall of nations. The principles that build 
and those that break are featured. The Bible con- 
tains a complete history of the beginnings, the 
principles and the nature of freedom. Here we 
find the substance and inspiration of all such docu- 
ments as the Magna Charta and the Declaration of 
Independence. From first to last the Bible stands 
for equality, brotherhood, and mutual service 
among men. 

12. The institutions of the human race would 
afford another valuable study course through the 
Seriptures. The family, the tribe, the court, the 


76 THe DISCIPLES 


tabernacle, the temple, the synagogue, the school 
and the Church. 

13. We may study the Bible with reference to 
the Great Beyond. The New Testament has the 
demonstration and the last word on this, the most 
important of all man’s passions. The 28th Chap- 
ter of Matthew, the 14th Chapter of John and the 
15th Chapter of 1 Corinthians answer every rea- 
sonable question of head and heart about death 
and the Great Beyond. 

14. But the supreme way to study the Bible is to 
use it as the revelation of the will of God and to 
have the conscience, the heart, the will and the mind 
educated to do His will as the whole duty and the 
whole happiness of man. (Ecclesiastes 12:13, 14.) 


Supremacy of the Bible 


The Bible is the supreme treasure of the human 
race. It is the literary expression of the mind of 
God on the subject of man’s nature, his needs, his 
duties, his possibilities and his eternal destiny. It 
is more to him than all books of science, law, art, 
statescraft, literature, more even than civilization. 
It is more because it deals with that which is of 
supreme value to man—his soul, his conduct, and 
his eternity. It is more to him because it is an 
inspired book that inspires. If all the achieve- 
ments of science and invention—which we regard 
as being the greatest instruments of man’s material 
welfare—were blotted out the Bible would continue 


THE BIBLE AND Its USE fit 


so to energize, arouse, envision, and give to man 
the desire to make the most out of himself, and the 
altruistic passion to make the most out of others, 
that he would take up again the fascinating and 
rewarding search for the secrets and the blessings 
of nature. Where there is an open Bible and free- 
dom of action the long, glorious march of lberty 
will be continued and schools, churches, states, 
nations and great and good men will be made to 
lead the peoples on. The heart to work will be 
kept beating with enthusiasm and the dark experi- 
ences of life will not erush men. Life will stead- 
ily grow into greater wonder and majesty because 
the feet of humanity will be guided in the path 
that grows brighter and brighter unto the perfect 
day. 

As we launch forth on the great adventure, by 
which we fare forth beyond sun, moon, and stars, 
we shali go out unafraid and conscious of the Great 
Presence if we have the Bible in our hands. 

When Sir Walter Scott, the literary idol of all 
who love beautiful books, the man of clean life and 
noble ideals, was dying he said to Loekhart, his 
son-in-law : 

‘Bring me the Book.’’ 

‘“What book?’’ asked Lockhart. 

**The Book,’’ said Sir Walter; ‘‘the Bible; there 
is but one.’’ And through the Bible which was 
given him he got glimpses of the Shining Ones 
coming down to the river to meet him. 


CHAPTER V 
THE CHURCH AND ITS PURPOSE 


HE Church of which we are thinking in this 

chapter is the Church of which Jesus Christ 
said, ‘‘On this rock I will build my Church; and 
the powers of Hades shall not succeed against it.”’ 
(Matt. 16:18. Moffatt.) It is the Church which 
the Disciples are seeking to restore and to propa- 
gate. Its survival in spite of every kind of oppo- 
sition from its enemies, and its growth and prog- 
ress notwithstanding the neglect, the strife and the 
misrepresentation of its friends, marks it as the 
miracle of history. 


It has had no army to protect it or to enforce 
its ideas. It controls no societies of wealth so that 
it would be possible for it to put the iron ring of 
want around those who might not agree with its 
aims and work. The early Church had not, neither 
has the Chureh today, such alliance with any 
earthly government that it could disseminate its 
doctrines or build its organization by force. 

Yet it has lived and does live and is the strong- 
est, the most mobile, agile, forward-looking, inclu- 
sive, industrious and wide-awake body in the 
world. Of all the general organizations on earth 
the Church alone kept its morale during the World 


78 


THE CHURCH AND ITs PURPOSE 79 


War. We confidently believe that no shock nor 
terror of the future can overthrow it or perma- 
nently hurt it. 


The Origin of the Church 

The Church was instituted by Jesus Christ. He 
said, ‘‘I will build my Church.’’ It is therefore, 
of divine origin and continues to be upheld, di- 
rected and used as the body of Jesus Christ acting 
in the field of human experience. 

1. The Church idea roots back into the Old Tes- 
tament era. Through many centuries God has had 
a people whom he ealled out from the world. 
These people known to us as the Jews were a na- 
tion, rather than a Church, but God’s purposes 
for the peoples of earth were lodged in them. 
They became the apostles of the divine ideal, and 
prepared the world for the coming of Christ and 
his Church. 

2. But the Church is a New Testament institu- 
tion. In the nature of the case there could not be 
a Church of Jesus Christ until after he lived his 
hfe as a revelation and manifestation of God’s 
purposes, died on the cross as a sacrifice for the 
sins of the world, and was buried and arose from 
the dead to bring life and immortality to lght 
through the gospel. 

3. How Christ built his Church may be easily 
traced in the New Testament. He called about 
him disciples and apostles to whom he gave the 


80 THE DISCIPLES 


message of God for the peoples of earth. He called 
together a people, gave them a doctrine, and im- 
parted to them a power. The people are the 
Church, the doctrine is the gospel and the power 
is the Holy Spirit who dwells in the Church for 
interpretation, cleansing, guidance and perpetual 
awakening and inspiration. 

4. The Church is perpetually renewed by the 
streams of people who are won by its preaching to 
accept Christ as the Son of God, to own Him as 
Master, and Lord, to seek his presence in the com- 
munion, his comfort in the promises, and his train- 
ing in the teaching. ‘‘The essence of the Church 
lies in the Savior who reigns and the people he 
governs. Where he is there is his Chureh; and 
where he reigns, there are his people.’’ 


5. An illustration of how the Church was di- 
vinely organized and divinely perpetuated may be 
seen in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apos- 
tles. Jesus Christ who had ascended to heaven 
and been crowned both Lord and Christ, after his 
crucifixion and resurrection poured out the Hoiy 
Spirit upon his apostles, and inspired them to 
preach the gospel with tongues of fire. The people 
heard, believed, repented, confessed Christ, were 
baptized into his Name and added to the Church. 

6. To become a member of the Church it is neces- 
sary to have an inner experience, an outward ex- 
pression, a divine blessing, and a new social at- 


THE CHURCH AND ITS PURPOSE 81 


tachment. The inner experience is to hear and 
believe the gospel, and to repent of sin. The out- 
ward expression is to confess Christ as Lord and 
be immersed in his name. The divine blessing is 
to have God remit one’s sins and grant him the 
gift of the Holy Spirit. The new social alignment 
is to become a member of the visible organization. 
These things performed with the spirit and un- 
derstanding make one a member of the Church 
as it is in the sight and intention of God. (Acts 
2 :36, 37, 38, 42, 47.) 

All of this is profoundly spiritual. It reaches 
the depth of the relationship between God and 
man, and between man and man. It is to have 
the eternal atonement by which we are made one 
with God, and an abiding reconciliation with our 
fellowmen. It is the greatest spiritual revolution 
the soul ean experience in this world. Its symbol 
and power is the eross. (See also Chapter X in 
this book.) 


The Nature of the Church 


It is an error to think of the Church as being 
only ‘‘another human organization’’ or a kind of 
sacred or religious lodge for the people who wish 
that kind of association. It partakes of the divine 
nature for it is sublimely described as ‘‘the 
Church of the living God,’’ and in a beautiful and 
familiar way, with a speech I trust we all under- 
stand as “‘the house of God’’ (1 Timothy 3:15), 


82 THE DISCIPLES 


‘‘the habitation of God’’ (Ephesians 2:22) and it 
is called ‘‘his body’’ (Ephesians 1:23). It is thus 
a Shekinah, a perpetual incarnation, and the in- 
strument of Christ’s work in the world—his army, 
his herald and his school. Let the Church there- 
fore be considered a divine institution. 


In the field of history ‘‘the Church he (Christ) 
founded was not a state, a hierarchy, a coercive 
authority, a kingdom of this world, but a spiritual 
society, consisting of those who, by a faith like 
Peter’s in Jesus Christ himself, are built into him 
as lively stones.’’ 


The Church is both an organization and an or- 
ganism. As an organization it is equipped with 
officers and directors. ‘These are chosen by the 
members in a democratic way. It is their part in 
the management of the Church. It is their high 
privilege of co-operating with God in the enter- 
prise of serving humanity. As an organism the 
Church has a life that is perpetually extending it- 
self and depositing the energy and cutting out the 
new channels through which the divine life flows 
into the world. 

Both as an organization and as an organism the 
Church is an instrument of the Holy Spirit who 
saves it from crystallizing and falling into a erude 
and stereotyped manner of doing things. The 
Church like Paul must die daily but it is also re- 


THE CHURCH AND ITS PURPOSE 83 


newed day by day by the inflow of the divine life 
through teaching and prayer. 

1. The Church is the society of Jesus. (Eph. 5: 
25-27.) He is its Lord, its head, its director. It 
is spoken of as the body of Christ. (Eph. 5:29, 
30.) He is always to be found in the midst of his 
Chureh, as symbolized in the book of Revelation 
by ‘‘seven golden candlesticks.’’ (Rev. 1:12-16.) 
Hence among the designations of members of the 
apostolic church was the name ‘‘Christian.’’ They 
had been made over and were filled with Christ’s 
spirit. His mark was upon them. Their character 
was a Christian character. They were like Christ. 
Christ was in them, the experience and the hope of 
glory. So that when Peter and John appeared be- 
fore the council and spoke with boldness it was 
written, ‘‘They marvelled and they took knowledge 
of them that they had been with Jesus.’’ (Acts 4: 
18.) The Church of Christ is the beginning of the 
New Humanity. 


2. The Church is a society of believers. Dr. R. 
F.. Horton truly says: 


Although a systematic doctrine of the Church is 
neither to be found nor to be looked for in the New Tes- 
tament, certain characteristic notes or features of the 
Christian Society are brought before us from which we 
can form some conception as to its nature. The funda- 
mental note is faith. It was to Peter confessing his 
faith in Christ that the promise came, ‘‘Upon this rock 
will I build my church’’ (Matt. 16:18). Until Jesus 


84 THE DISCIPLES 


found a man full of faith He could not begin to build 
His church; and unless Peter had been the prototype of 
others whose faith was like his own, the walls of the 
Church would never have arisen into the air. Primarily 
the Church is a society not of thinkers or workers or even 
of worshipers, but of believers. Hence we find that ‘‘be- 
lievers’’ or ‘‘they that believed’’ is constantly used as 
a synonym for the members of the Christian society (e. 
g., Acts 2:44; 4:32; 5:14; 1 Tim. 4:12). Hence, too, the 
rite of baptism, which from the first was the condition of 
entrance into the apostolic church and the seal of mem- 
bership in it, was recognized as preeminently the sacra- 
ment of faith and of confession (Acts 2:41; 8:13-36; 
Rom. 6:4; 1 Cor. 12:13). This church-founding and 
church-building faith, of which baptism was the seal, 
was much more than an act of intellectual assent. It 
was a personal laying hold of the personal Savior, the 
bond of a vital union between Christ and the believer 
which resulted in nothing less than a new creation 
(Rom. 6:4; 8:1, 2; 2 Cor. 5:17). 


3. The Church is a brotherhood. In the New 
Testament its members are called ‘‘brethren.’’ It 
put the brotherhood idea into the world and has 
acted by that doctrine through the centuries. A 
true Church is organized love. ‘‘Love the brother- 
hood’’ is a divine injunction. 

This love did not end merely in kind feelings 
and civil conduct of the members toward one an- 
other. It was seen also in the fellowship of giving. 
In the earliest chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, 
we find that there was a community of goods es- 
tablished. People sold all they had and made a 


THe CHURCH AND ITS PURPOSE 85 


common fund. This was distributed ‘‘unto each 
according as any one had need.’’ There was a 
wonderful, sacrificial stewardship—‘‘not one of 
them said that aught of the things which he pos- 
sessed was his own.’’ (Acts 4:32.) 

The idea of a common possession was purely 
voluntary and later became so modified that we do 
not hear of it again. But it did not die. It only 
changed form. 

After this Jerusalem incident, stewardship be- 
came the ideal expression of consecration and 
brotherhood. A man is bound to use what he has, 
as being the possession of God, while he himself is 
its agent. 

The brotherhood idea was further emphasized in 
the meetings of which the Lord’s Supper was the 
central fact. They came to the Communion to 
learn of Christ, to experience Christ. They came 
as brethren. They were all equal before him. 
There was no vanity, no rank and order, no caste. 
Christ was the Master and they were brethren. 

4. The Church is a character-building society. 
Hence one of the names of the early Christian was 
‘‘saint.’’ God called out a people to purify them 
unto himself. One of the most striking facts in the 
early Church was the emphasis placed upon char- 
acter. So much was stress laid upon this, so fine 
were the characters produced by it, and so great 


86 THE DISCIPLES 


was the contrast to heathen character and ethics 
that the Christians were called a third race. 


True to the apostolic doctrine and practice, the 
Church is valued still by the high type of men and 
women it produces. Greater than writing litera- 
ture, painting pictures, organizing states or invent- 
ing wonderful machines is the making of the new 
character in Christ Jesus. It is character by re- 
generation and it is fostered and grown to perfec- 
tion by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. 

5. The Church is a society of learners. One of 
the names for its members often used in the New 
Testament, is ‘‘disciples.’’ Disciple means learner. 
Every one who belongs to the Church, if he is a 
good Church member, is a perpetual learner in 
the things and ways of Jesus Christ. This name 
for the Christian is used oftener than any other 
in the New Testament. It is beautiful in humility. 
It carries the picture of Jesus sitting on the mount, 
preaching the immortal sermon, while his disciples 
are seated about him with radiant, eager faces, 
learning his ‘‘ wonderful words of life.’’ No finer 
illustration of the Church exists. 

6. The Church is a society of saviors. 

We gather this from Paul’s statement that he 
becomes all things to all men that by all means he 
might save some. (1 Cor. 9:22.) Our Master 
taught the same when he told his disciples they 
were the salt of the earth and the light of the 


THE CHURCH AND Its PURPOSE 87 


world. One of the best definitions of the Church 
we know is as follows: 

The Church is the association of those who love, in the 
service of those who suffer. 

Its highest influence is to inspire men and 
women to live by love and to work by love; its 
highest service to ‘“‘rescue the perishing and care 
for the dying.’’? (See also pp. 59-60.) 


Mission of the Church 


This phase of the subject has been anticipated 
in the preceding section, but for the sake of clear- 
ness and fulness we must set it forth directly, as 
well as indirectly. Besides, there is much not yet 
said on this topic. 

The mission of the Church is the mission of the 
Master. Whatever he did while he was in the 
world the Church must do. It fulfills all its duty 
by making known Christ’s purposes and by inspir- 
ing men with his spirit. This invests the soul with 
the power that will energize it to live the life and 
bear the fruits Jesus intended. He meant it as a 
saving environment for the individual; and 
through individuals, a redeeming power for soci- 
ety. That means to organize society for good in- 
stead of evil. It sets up the task of making good 
men and women as the supreme duty. That is its 
redemptive work. (Luke 24:46-49.) The whole 
power of the Church is to be used to that end. 


88 THE DISCIPLES 


That is the object of all the forces, offices, organi- 
zations and personalities of the Church. It lifts 
altruism into the realm of the spiritual and gives 
us the higher Christian ranges of the grand old 
commandment, ‘‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself. ’’ 


‘“‘And he gave some to be apostles; and some, 
prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors 
and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, * 
* * * unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure 
of the stature of the fulness of Christ: that we 
may be no longer children, tossed to and fro and 
carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the 
sleight of man, in craftiness, after the wiles of 
error; but speaking truth in love, may grow up in 
all things into him, who is the head, even Christ.”’ 
(Ephesians 4:11-15.) The final purpose of God 
wrought out in this world is seen in redeemed men 
and women. 


1. The supreme power of the Church in redeem- 
ing the race is to reveal God as Father and to show 
men how to live together as his children. This 
was Christ’s mission in the world. He said in his 
Upper Room prayer that he had made God known 
to his disciples that they might have the eternal 
life which comes from God and Christ. (John 17: 
3, 4.) 

2. The second help in redeeming the race is wit- 
ness bearing. (Acts 1:8.) There are two or three 


THE CHURCH AND [TS PURPOSE 89 


ways in which witness may be borne. (a) There 
is the witness of character. A Christian is a burn- 
ing bush out of which God speaks. We must live 
as Christ lived. No one can doubt Christ inearnate 
in righteous men and women. (b) A second way 
is by knowing the New Testament and teaching 
it. (ce) A third is by worship. This involves 
ehureh attendance. Public worship is a powerful 
and winsome witness of the reality and presence of 
God. Often those who come to church to scoff will 
remain to pray when they see others at prayer. 
(d) Preaching the Word and hymn-singing are 
methods of testifying for God. True preaching is 
revelation. (e) The administration of the ordi- 
nances also bears witness to the authority, goodness 
and power of God and Christ, and to the cleansing 
and joy-giving presence of the Holy Spirit. 


3. The Church is charged with the task of con- 
serving truth. It is called the pillar and ground 
of the truth. (1 Tim. 3:15.) This commits the 
Church to complete friendliness to truth wherever 
found. 


It should be the friend of science, as well as it is 
of religion. It should be the pillar and ground of 
the truth as respects positive, constructive move- 
ments and reforms. It is fatal for the Church to 
be on the wrong side, or silent when great moral 
erises arise. 


The Church is the eustodian of the Bible. It is 


90 THE DISCIPLES 


to guard it sacredly and build by it industriously. 
It must broadcast it to the world in every way pos- 
sible. The truth that makes men free is in the 
New Testament. 

Conflicts between heterodoxy and orthodoxy, and 
strife between the faithful and the heretical are to 
be greatly deplored. Nevertheless it is the first 
duty of the Church to guard its trust of the Bible, 
and see that no irreverent adventurer casts doubt 
upon its divine origin or sublime truths. It is like 
keeping the fountains of life pure from poison and 
contamination. This is peculiarly the duty of the 
scholars of the Church and it reminds us that 
nothing is more needed in the Church than thor- 
oughly reverent and honest Christian scholars. By 
this is meant not simply men who have a gen- 
eral belief in religion but men who believe in a 
personal God, in his Son Jesus Christ, men who 
give themselves up to the leadership of his spirit, 
who love God and their fellowmen, and who believe 
the Bible to be the word of God. 


4. The program of the Church for spreading 
these needful and sublime ideas is given by Jesus 
Christ himself in Matt. 28:18-20. It is a wonder- 
ful program, reaching as far as the farthest man 
of the race, going as deep as his utmost needs, and 
enduring to the last year of time. 


This means, taken as a whole, that it is the duty 
of the Church to Christianize all mankind, in every 


THE CHURCH AND ITs PURPOSE 91 


department of life and in all its works, pleasures, 
recreations and associations. It means the creation 
of a complete Christian order, the enlargement of 
the Church itself to be coterminous with all races 
and nations. Christ thought in the largest terms 
and gave his bigness of vision and spirit of adven- 
ture to his followers. 


The power of the Church is to be found in 
preaching, baptizing and teaching, and this is per- 
petually renewed by the presence of Christ who 
never fails a loyal people. 


The Church’s Power and Influence 


Jesus told his disciples that whatsoever they 
bound on the earth should be bound in heaven. 
He gave to them the keys of the kingdom, which 
meant in a large way that the Church is to fix the 
destiny of mankind. Its continuing and increasing 
power shows that this is to be the case. The 
Church has always dealt with spiritual forces that 
are indestructible, divine and eternal. The heart of 
the world is crying out for these things today and 
has been all through history. It never gives a 
stone when a hungry heart asks for bread. A holy 
Church is the true guide for society. It keeps love 
alive in the world. It keeps faith alive in the 
world. It puts men in mind of their own souls 
and is in perpetual warfare with what harms hu- 
manity. The Church is indeed a society of saviors. 
It shows a lost world the way home to the Father. 


CHAPTER VI 
THE ORDINANCES AND THEIR REASON 


T would be more nearly correct to speak of 

Christian ordinances than of Church ordinances. 
The Church itself has neither the authority nor the 
spiritual genius to establish a symbol binding upon 
the followers of the Master. Only Christ could 
appoint a symbol which would be binding, enrich- 
ing and satisfying enough for an ordinance to ex- 
press the language of the soul seeking the presence 
and blessing of God. The ordinances are in na- 
ture sacraments and indeed are almost universally 
so designated. The Latin word sacramentum 
meant to the Roman mind, the oath of allegiance 
taken by a soldier to a general. It came to mean, 
in Christian thought, a sacred covenant. We like 
to think of the ordinances as the soul’s oath of 
loyalty to the Great Captain of our salvation. The 
sacraments or ordinances are the physical acts by 
which the benefits of the new covenant are repre- 
sented, sealed and applied to believers. Says Dr. 
W. W. Clow, ‘‘Sacraments are those rites or or- 
dinaneces which have been instituted to symbolize 
the truths of the spirit evident to the soul, by the 
things of nature evident to the senses.’’ An idea 
worthy of much study because it shows how deeply 
rooted in reality the ordinances are. 


92 


THE ORDINANCES AND THEIR REASON 93 


How the Ordinances Arose 

The ordinances accepted and taught generally 
by the Protestant churches, because taught in the 
New Testament, are Baptism and the Lord’s Sup- 
per. They were both appointed by Jesus Christ 
before the Church itself came into existence. The 
Master gave them, the Church administered them. 
The day of Pentecost is almost universally re- 
garded as the birthday of the Church. But the 
Master established the Supper the same night in 
which he was betrayed. He anticipated the mighty 
fact it was to memorialize in the most solemn and 
impressive manner. He caught the high, tender 
mood of the Upper Room and perpetuated it for- 
ever in this ordinance of the heart, this seal of an 
eternal friendship. Baptism was commanded after 
his resurrection and just before his ascension. It 
would appear that before that hour he had not spe- 
cifically set his own authority upon it. He never 
baptized in water. But now when he would es- 
tablish a great loyalty he appointed this expressive 
rite. 


Neither Baptism nor the Lord’s Supper was ob- 
served with full Christian content until the estab- 
lishment of the Church and the proclamation of 
the gospel on the day of Pentecost. They came in 
as symbols to mediate and unite the deeper things 
of the Spirit and the more external things of or- 
ganization. They are, therefore, both inward and 


94. THE DISCIPLES 


outward, and no matter how much abused—and 
surely they have been used badly enough—they 
still impart a power that can come from no other 
source. The Church is to give them perpetually 
to those for whom they are divinely intended till 
the end of the ages for the purpose which Christ 
meant when he appointed them. 


Only Two Ordinances 


The Greek and Roman Catholic churches teach 
that there are seven sacraments: Baptism, Con- 
firmation, the Lord’s Supper, Penance, Extreme 
Unetion, Ordination and Matrimony. 

When the Reformers detected the corruptions of 
the Church in their day and brought its doctrines 
and practices to the test of the Word of God, they 
found that the ceremonies observed under the 
names of Confirmation, Penance and Extreme Unc- 
tion had no warrant in Scripture, and that Or- 
dination and Matrimony, though certainly divine 
institutions, are not symbolical ordinances, are not 
applicable to all believers as such and that they 
were not instituted by Jesus Christ. Matrimony 
is one of the oldest institutions in the world. It is 
holy and essential both to the home and to society, 
but it is as much of the State as of the Church. 
This does not detract from its essential sacredness 
and obligatory meaning, but it removes marriage 
from the category of the sacraments. Confirma- 
tion, Penance, and Extreme Unction are church 


THE ORDINANCES AND THEIR REASON 95 


eustoms. The last two have been attended by great 
abuses, not to say scandals. 

Only Baptism and the Lord’s Supper were ap- 
pointed by Christ himself for perpetual and ever- 
lasting observance as ordinances or rites and they 
alone have any obligatory claims as such in the 
New Testament Church. Hence the Disciples prac- 
tice these alone as true Church ordinances and 
not the least of their contributions has been to help 
fix them in their proper places in Christian experi- 
ence and worship, and to exalt them again in the 
honor and appreciation of Christians. 


Why Ordinances at All 


One or two religious groups have discarded them 
entirely as having no place in a spiritual religion 
but these bodies have made little progress. If 
every other church had dismissed them, those bod- 
ies which reject them entirely could not have been 
held together. Yet it is fair and profitable to ask 
why ordinances at all, and there is no embarrass- 
ment in finding justification for them in reason as 
well as in the Scriptures. 

The necessity for such ordinances arises from 
the constitution of human nature itself. Man con- 
sists of a body by which he is connected with the 
material world; of a soul that unites him with so- 
ciety ; and of a spirit, by which he has communion 
with the eternal. The ordinances are based upon 
the necessity for social utterance of these three 


96 THE DISCIPLES 


aspects of man’s nature. They may be arbitrary 
signs and expressions, as it is possible speech may 
be, but they are essential to the utterance of feel- 
ings, dreams and ideals too deep for words, too 
spiritual for analysis and too intuitional for cold, 
formal logic. Yet when tested by the most rigid 
logie they stand. ‘They are justified by history and 
experience; they are organized into, and inter- 
woven with, the constitution of the Church. They 
are the answer of God to the deep prayer of hu- 
manity and the answer of man to the loving call 
of God. (1 Peter 3:21.) They are rooted in the 
Seriptures so that wherever the Bible is taken as a 
rule of faith and practice these ordinances exist. 
They could not be broken down without greatly 
impairing, perhaps without completely destroying 
the power and spirituality of organized Christian- 
ity. 

The ordinances, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, 
answer in a very unique and remarkable way to 
the ideas of modern psychology. By so much as 
that is scientific these ordinances are scientific. If 
there is such a thing as the subconscious mind into 
which pass the impressions of experiences, mem- 
ories, facts and ideas, where they form a kind of 
reserve that comes into active service in times of 
crisis and perpetually rise up to give color and sub- 
stance to thought and life, then Baptism and the 
Lord’s Supper must be reckoned as among the 


THE ORDINANCES AND THEIR REASON 97 


most useful of all experiences, helps and dynamics 
stored away in the subconscious mind or in the 
conscious memory. No man who acted in good 
faith when baptized ever forgets his baptism, and 
life is perpetually refreshed and sweetened by the 
Lord’s Supper. If there is anything in the hy- 
pothesis of ‘‘suggestion,’’ the Christian ordinances 
are to be considered the most powerful influences 
that can be projected into the soul. ‘‘God works 
through a power of newness of life which arises 
within the needy soul. The gifts of God wait upon 
something that happens in the minds of men, some 
profound, burning, passionate, conviction of the 
whole mind conscious and subconscious.’’ The 
conviction that causes man to sift his own soul and 
search for God in the ordinances of Baptism and 
the Lord’s Supper, gives God entrance into man’s 
mind, into his essential being. It is a scientific, 
psychological basis of the power of a ceremony. 
It shows the enlightenment by the ordinances. It 
is explained in the Word, ‘‘If any man willeth to 
do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether 
it is of God.’’ Symbol is not reality but it is a help 
or guide to reality. The musical staff is not music, 
not reality, but it leads to it. People could not 
sing together without observing symbols, nor can 
they find spiritual reality without observing ritual. 
Civilization could not exist without ritual, neither 
ean a Church. 


98 THE DISCIPLES 


It is at this point that religion presses art into 
service. The ritual of religion is its drama of the 
heart and soul, its picture of the idea that would 
otherwise be forever hidden, and the method by 
which vision is made experience. One had as well 
deny the service of art to culture and life as the 
service of the ordinances to religious experience. 
A quotation from Dr. Georges Duhamel, the emi- 
nent French writer, illustrates the idea. He de- 
clares: 

It cannot be said any longer that pure art is of no use: 
it helps us to live. 

It helps us to live, in the most practical manner and 
every day. 

Every moment you make instinctive, reiterated, and 
forcible appeals to all forms of art. And that not only 
in order to express your thought, but still more and above 
all to shape your thought, to think your thought. 

You find yourself in the midst of a landscape, and 
there is an image at the back of your eye. The manner 
in which you accept and interpret this image bears the 
mark of your personality and also of a crowd of other 
personalities which you call to your aid without knowing 
it. 

You live in a sonorous universe where everything is 
rhythm, tone, number and harmony: human voices, the 
great sounds of nature, the artificial uproar of society 
envelops you in a vibrant and complex network that you 
ought unceasingly to decipher and translate. Well, this 
you cannot do without submitting to the influence of the 
great souls who have occupied themselves with these 
things. The understanding of movements, harmonies, 
rhythms, only comes to you at the moment when the 


THE ORDINANCES AND THEIR REASON 99 


musicians reveal their secret to you, since they have been 
able, in some fashion, to interest you in them. 


In the same way Christianity is helped by the 
ordinances which have come out of its life, as has 
music, architecture, the Church, a new culture, and 
a new and purer social atmosphere. 

Ordinances or rites are essential to the life of 
society itself. They express and intensify the 
right relationship between people. Handshaking 
is the ritual of friendship. The handshake is not 
friendship but an expression of it and by that fact 
fosters and increases friendship. It is likely that 
friendship would perish from among men if hand- 
shaking were to cease. We end quarrels by it. 
We express the consummation of profound unions 
by it. John Smith and B. W. Stone at the union 
of the ‘‘Disciples’’ and ‘‘Christians’’ shook hands 
as a symbol of the consummated union. The ab- 
stract and somewhat fantastic expression, ‘‘ Hands 
across the sea,’’ has made a real contribution to 
international friendship. The mental picture it 
draws has wrought a charm. 


‘‘Symbols then enter largely into the daily life 
of any community that has a past in common. 
Certain actions stand as the expression of certain 
inner realities’? and make them more certain in the 
soul, in life, and in society by expressing them. 
‘‘The expression is in no sense a pretense; it is the 
only way, or at least the commonly accepted way, 


100 THE DISCIPLES 


of manifesting forth a reality which otherwise 
could not be seen or heard or touched.’’ Manners 
and morals are much more intimately connected 
than most people imagine. Break down man- 
ners and you have certainly destroyed the first line 
of defense for morals. The habit of saying ‘‘good 
morning,’’ even though a habit, contributes much 
to optimism, and helps to make many a happy day. 

These illustrations show the depth of our every 
day unconscious ritual; but how much more power- 
ful it becomes, when given as the solemn act of a 
body of people, and the quest and expression of 
God’s will, in such symbols as Baptism and the 
Lord’s Supper. 

There has been much discussion, bitter and de- 
plorable, over these rites, but that shows their deep 
hold on men’s hearts. It may even be doubted 
whether Christianity could have lived as a force 
in life and history without them. How long would 
Masonry last without the lodge and the ritual? 
When the early Christians were driven into the 
catacombs and eaves of the mountains, these ordi- 
nances kept memory alive; memory vitalized faith; 
faith inspired loyalty; loyalty held them to one 
another and to Christ, and thus it came to pass 
that the young Church was indestructible. 


Marks of True Ordinances 


The problem connected with the Christian or- 
dinances has always been to make them real; to 


THE ORDINANCES AND THEIR REASON 101 


have them physical and outward, and at the same 
time to keep them so they would minister to the 
spiritual life instead of promoting legalism and 
superstition. To fulfill such an office they must 
have several characteristics : 


1. They must be simple, so simple as not to be 
mistaken for reality within themselves; so simple 
that they can be performed any time, anywhere 
under proper circumstances. If they did not pos- 
sess this quality, only a few could ever observe 
them. Suppose the memorial to Christ required a 
Taj Mahal of white alabaster, with its crystal and 
marble and exquisite peacock throne of precious 
stones, with its cost of millions, and the years 
necessary to construct it and the artistic glory it 
embodies—instead of being the simple supper it is 
—who could observe it? Suppose it required a 
pilgrimage to Christ’s tomb in order to show 
proper worship—how many would keep up their 
love for him? And would not those who erected 
the magnificent structure, or made the long, tire- 
some pilgrimage, imagine that they had thereby 
purchased their own cleansing from sin? That 
would, indeed, make the ordinances misleading. 

2. The ordinances must be of such a character 
that they cannot be used idolatrously. The Lord’s 
Supper has at times been almost so treated. This 
is a blasphemous abuse that can only be prevented 
by keeping close to the simplicity of the New Tes- 


102 THE DISCIPLES 


tament. The ordinances must be used to make 
Christ more real, not to obscure him. 


3. The ordinances must be fitting symbolically. 
Such are Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. In them 
both the sacrificial and sacramental system of 
Christianity are pictured. The Lord’s Supper is 
the emblem of the blood shed on the cross, while 
Baptism is a pictorial enactment of the death, bur- 
ial, resurrection and beginning of the new life in 
Jesus Christ. 


4. They must be connected with character build- 
ing, not magically, but in the same way that lan- 
guage is, as the outward expression of inner 
thought and purpose. They must carry an enlight- 
ening message, a purifying consecration, and a 
strengthening inspiration. Christianity has mys- 
tical and miraculous aspects but there is not a 
tinge of magic in it and whoever treats it super- 
stitiously, mechanically, or commercially, has 
missed its whole genius and power. 


5. The ordinances must carry true and valuable 
social implications, like Baptism and the Lord’s 
Supper. For they put men forth confessing the 
highest principles; aiming at the sublimest char- 
acter; and uniting themselves together as brothers. 
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are social as well 
as religious ordinances. Through them, one de- 
clares himself a social force, as well as a saved 
soul. They are intended for others, as well as for 


THE ORDINANCES AND THEIR REASON 103 


those receiving them. They are the sign and seal, 
the bond and ratification, of the relationship of 
souls in ‘‘the beloved community.’’ By them the 
man who has chosen Christ brings his new life out 
into the open. 

6. They must be intended to connect the soul 
with God. In their deepest nature, they are of the 
essence of worship. For man performs them to 
show his faith and love, and to make himself more 
worthy of the possible greatness of his own soul. 
The ordinances partake of the nature of prayer. 

7. To be Christian, a symbol must be authorita- 
tive and not merely accidental or the outgrowth of 
custom. In a good sense it must be arbitrary, for 
then the acceptance of it owns Christ’s right to 
make tests of men’s sincerity. A man may ac- 
cept or reject it, thus showing also the sovereignty 
of his spirit. 

There can be no reasonable doubt of the spiritual 
validity of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. What 
is needed, is not to decry them, neglect them. nor 
alter them as some do, but to live on the spiritual 
levels to which they lift us in the golden glow of 
our first love for Christ, the life to which we pledge 
ourselves when we pass under the spell of the 
Three Great Names. 


No Substitutes for the Ordinances 


The question will arise to those who reflect upon 
the ordinances from every point of view, why the 


104 THE DISCIPLES 


Church might not acceptably change them or in- 
vent substitutes that would seemingly suit its own 
environment and age better. The idea should be 
treated fairly. 


An all-sufficient answer would be that no such 
ehange is needed. All the elements of compre- 
hensiveness and adaptability inhere in those we 
already have. They express just what one wishes 
to have expressed, and they carry with them the 
riches, the sacredness and the flavor of two thou- 
sand years of observance by people dedicating 
their lives to Christ, and seeking to feel the flame 
of his life warming their hearts. 

They were given by Christ. That alone en- 
shrines them, as they are, sacredly in the Christian 
heart. It is an inexpressible satisfaction to have 
something just as Christ gave it, to do something 
just as Christ directed it. 


To change the ordinances would introduce a lib- 
erty which holds great possibilities of harm. If 
the ordinances can be changed why not anything 
else? Where would the revisions stop? Senti- 
ment, authority, expediency, and utility are- 
against substituting anything for the ordinances as 
Christ delivered them to his Church. 

The principle involved may be illustrated by a 
beautiful and penetrating paragraph from an essay 
on poetry by the English poet, John Drinkwater. 
He points out that poet after poet uses the same 


Tue ORDINANCES AND THEIR Reason 105 


metrical forms, although they might invent others. 
This is because the poet’s instinct tells him that 
they are the right and natural ones for language 
to fall into. He says: 

But the strange and wonderful thing is that each poet, 
while he adds to his authority by using these traditional 
forms, is able to impress them with his own personal 
sense of rhythm in such a way that they never grow 


stale, and are indeed new things with each new poet who 
uses them. 


The old summer returns—the same old wonder- 
ful, beautiful summer, but the green verdure with 
which the trees cover themselves and the fresh 
flowers blooming are as ‘‘marvellously new, as 
truly exciting discoveries for us when we see them 
as though there had never been such life before.”’ 
So the poet 

Sees and feels and questions out of his individual life, 
until ‘the old experience is transfigured into something 
radiantly new and interesting, and he breathes into the 
old forms of poetry his own delighted sense of rhythm, 


until they too become fresh and vivid as the flowers that 
come to us with untiring wonder year by year. 


In the same way, the Christian ordinances are 
forever new and fresh, divine tokens, divine assur- 
ances, wonderful experiences and realities for each 
soul coming to Christ. We would not wish to 
change the world’s great poems, nor its miracle of 
musie and musical forms, nor the roses, nor the 
summer, nor Baptism nor the Lord’s Supper. 


CHAPTER VII 
BAPTISM, THE FAITH ORDINANCE 


Eee many centuries baptism has been a storm- 
center in ecclesiastical and theological think- 
ing, and it is still the occasion of much earnest, if 
not acrimonious, debate. But with the New Testa- 
ment in our hands, it ought not to be hard to de- 
cide its place in spiritual experience. It should be 
thought of, and received, in the same spirit in 
which we approach prayer, or the Lord’s Supper. 
We should neither over-emphasize nor undervalue 
it. It has a place in the organization of spiritual- 
ity, and of the Church. 


The Place of Baptism 

Baptism is mentioned directly or indirectly in 
the New Testament no less than 115 times. The 
forerunner of Christ was called John the Baptist, 
because he preached in the wilderness and bap- 
tized those who came unto him. Jesus himself was 
baptized, declaring as his reason—‘‘thus it be- 
cometh us to fulfill all righteousness.’’ This shows 
that Baptism is a spiritual experience and not a 
dogma; for Jesus Christ was neither a ‘“‘literalist’’ 
nor a ‘‘legalist.’’ To have due respect unto God’s 
appointments, to perform them literally, as nearly 


106 


BaPpTisM, THE FaltH ORDINANCE 107 


as possible, and to preach them earnestly, is not 
to fight against the deeper spiritual life, but on the 
other hand, it is to contend for it. 


There was a difference between the baptism of 
John and the baptism of Jesus. Indeed, their dis- 
ciples seem to have clashed over their respective 
claims, and sects of John’s followers persisted for 
a considerable time after his death. But John rec- 
ognized in Jesus the Messiah, and Jesus declared 
John the greatest born among women, and yet de- 
clared that he had not attained unto the greatness 
of the Kingdom. There was much in common in 
the baptism of John and the baptism of Jesus— 
for example the form and the rigid ethical de- 
mands of both. Both were also the challenges of a 
great opportunity. 


As to the purpose of John’s baptism, he was 
once asked by a deputation from Jerusalem why 
he baptized, and he replied in substance that it 
was to introduce Jesus. (John 1:25-28.) He de- 
elared that he was a voice preparing the way for 
Jesus. 


John’s baptism was temporal; Jesus’ baptism 
was permanent. John’s baptism was a kind of 
reformation; Jesus’ was a new life. John’s baptism 
was with reference to the first coming of Christ; 
Jesus’ baptism was with reference to his second 
coming. John’s baptism was for the Jews only; 
Jesus’ baptism was for the whole world. John’s 


108 THE DISCIPLES 


baptism was for Christ about to appear; Jesus’ 
baptism was for Christ already come. John’s bap- 
tism was to prepare a people; Jesus’ baptism was 
to make way for a new spiritual order. John’s 
baptism contemplated only repentance and for- 
giveness of sin; Jesus’ baptism was for repentance, 
for remission of sins, for the confession of his Lord- 
ship, and for receiving the Holy Spirit. Christian 
Baptism is so deep that it is the sign, the seal, the 
beginning and the pledge of the new humanity Je 
sus came to create. ‘‘As many of you as were 
baptized into Christ did put on Christ.’’ (Gal. 
3:27.) ‘‘If any man be in Christ he is a new 
creature.’ 

Jesus connected Baptism with the great commis- 
sion, directing those who preached the gospel to 
baptize and to teach also. Baptism is put into the 
same category with preaching and teaching. It 
links these mighty creative spiritual forces to the 
life of the individual both outwardly and inwardly 
and gives them practical result. All those who 
entered the early Church came in by the confes- 
sional act of Baptism which completed their con- 
version and declared the beginning of the new life. 
(Acts 2:47.) 


Who May be Baptized 


Baptism is the final form of the confession of 
faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of the living God. 
When the devout Ethiopian officer was ardently 


BaPTisM, THE FAITH ORDINANCE 109 


seeking the realization of the lyric prophecies of 
Isaiah in his own soul, and discovered that Jesus 
Christ, the Son of God, was the Suffering Servant 
who bore the sins of the world, and asked what 
hindered him to be baptized, he was told that he 
might if he believed with all his heart. On de- 
claring that he believed Jesus to be the Son of God, 
he was baptized. (Acts 8:32-39.) Baptism is for 


all those who would polarize their lives about Jesus 
Christ. 


Baptism is, therefore, for all who understand- 
ingly, intentionally and sacrificially accept the 
Lordship of Jesus Christ, and want to declare that 
fact to the world. It is for those who feel broken, 
crushed and disgraced by sin, and are determined 
to throw it off; it is for such as are of a broken 
heart and a contrite spirit; it is for all, who having 
never received it, want to enter upon a larger life 
with the gladness and sense of the liberty it gives— 
like Lydia; it is for those who would enter the 
beloved community known as the Church, who 
want to live in the love of God and by the word 
and name of the Master. (Acts 2:38; Acts 8:34- 
39.) 

No mere formalist should be baptized—for Bap- 
tism is a vital experience. It can only be religious 
as it is done of one’s own choosing, with thought- 
ful purpose and conviction, with thirst for union 
with Jesus Christ and his people. Baptism leads 


110 THE DISCIPLES 


into the experience of the love of God which has 
been the satisfaction and the ecstasy of the saints of 
all ages. Baptism cannot be received by proxy; 
the soul receiving it must have part in it. A true 
baptism always carries the full, glad consent of 
the heart of the person being baptized. ‘‘He that 
believeth and is baptized shall be saved.’’ 

An unbeliever, a non-believer, an irresponsible 
person cannot be baptized. Even though he go 
through the form, it isnot Baptism. It requires the 
union of the will of God and the will of man to 
make a baptism valid. 


W hat Baptism Is 

By this we refer to the elements and the action 
of it. As such it consists of (1) an inner experi- 
ence; (2) of an outer form; and (3) a visible act. 


1. The Inward Substance of Baptism 

As an action of the soul it is the experience of 
God through man’s desire to find him, to know him 
and to do his will. Its wonderful spiritual content 
may be judged from the fact that the candidate is 
baptized into the name of the Father and of the 
Son and of the Holy Spirit. This puts the divine, 
as well as the human, intent into Baptism. It is on 
the strength of the Great Commission (Matt. 28: 
18-20) that the Three Names are invoked in Bap- 
tism. Sometimes baptism was only in the name of 
the Lord Jesus. (Acts 10:48; 19:5.) The calling 


BAPTISM, THE FAITH ORDINANCE 111 


of the Three Names over the convert as he is being 
baptized expresses the prayer of the Chureh for 
him, as well as his own prayer for himself. It is 
an act of worship, for Jesus himself, by whom, in 
his own actions, it was first tied up with the Chris- 
tian teaching, received it with prayer. Baptism is 
the ery of the heart for the forgiveness of God. 
(See 1 Peter 3:21. Moffatt.) 


2. The Outward Form of Baptism 

(a) The word baptizo is a Greek word. It is 
brought over into the English language without 
translation—Anglicized, as we say. The word 
means to dip, to plunge, to immerse. 

(b) This meaning is also established by exegesis 
of references to the subject in the New Testament. 
The context of the word when used, will not allow 
any other meaning but immersion. 

In the volume of ‘‘The International Critical 
Commentary’’ on Romans, by William Sanday and 
A. C. Headlam, both Oxford scholars, the follow- 
ing exegesis of the reference to Baptism in the 
sixth chapter of Romans is given: 


Baptism has a double function. 

(1) It brings the Christian into personal contact with 
Christ, so close that it may be fitly described as union 
with him. 

(2) It expresses symbolically a series of acts corre- 
sponding to the redeeming acts of Christ. 


Tao THE DISCIPLES 


Immersion = Death 
Submersion = Burial (the ratification of death) 
Emergence = Resurrection 


This shows at once that only immersion can be 
considered the Scriptural form of Baptism, and at 
the same time reveals its entire appropriateness for 
the expression of the spiritual experience and idea 
to be conveyed. 

(c) Likewise the figures and similes of Baptism 
in the New Testament all mean immersion. For 
example, ‘‘washing,’’ ‘‘laver of regeneration,”’ 
‘‘burial,’’ ‘‘resurrection,’’ ‘‘suffering.”’ 

(d) The early history of the Church establishes 
the same fact. Sprinkling and pouring were in- 
troduced, and were allowable only in the emergency 
of sickness. In case of recovery, immersion was to 
be gone through with by the person having re- 
ceived affusion. This makes it more certain that 
the form of apostolic baptism was immersion. 
Sprinkling and pouring were introduced far this 
side of the days of the apostles; hence they are 
human substitutes for the divine appointment. 


3. Outwardly, as Visible to Others 


Baptism is a visible act by which the witness of 
it understands that the one being baptized is dedi- 
eating his life to Christ and the Church. Baptism 
is the experience that translates one from being a 
non-Christian to being a Christian. 


BAPTISM, THE FAITH ORDINANCE 113 


What Baptism Does for Us 

One of the obstacles to the proper interpretation 
of the teachings of Jesus has always been that his 
followers have insisted upon thinking of them 
theologically, instead of under the aspect of life, 
and nothing has suffered more in this respect than 
Baptism. It has been entangled with philosophy, 
theology, metaphysics and mysticism until it has 
seemed to some miraculous and to others supersti- 
tious. We get the true view of it only as we see 
that Christ gave us a way of life, and not a theo- 
logical system. Baptism is an open declaration of 
purpose to walk in that way, and it is an experi- 
ence that will help us to do so. 

This can be understood from the New Testament, 
and by the use made of Baptism in the apostolic 
Chureh. It is certain that it is not to be taken in 
any magical, commercial, formal, or miraculous 
sense. It is spiritual in purpose and intention, as 
we know from the New Testament, and from what 
follows in personal and social experience. The 
community accepts men at a different valuation 
after their baptism, and the baptized themselves 
have a different feeling and attitude to their own 
lives and to life in general. There are mystical 
aspects in Baptism—depths we cannot fathom; but 
it was intended to be followed by a new life, and 
we have noted that in thousands of instances a 


114 THE DISCIPLES 


higher level of living is attained after Baptism and 
through Baptism. 

Even the baptism of Jesus was followed by (1) 
the open heaven—suggesting access to God; (2) 
the descending dove—meaning the full indwelling 
of the Holy Spirit; (8) and the voice of God de- 
claring him His beloved Son—the voice of assur- 
ance. 

If Baptism was a blessing to Jesus, who was 
holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sin- 
ners, what must it be to sinful man who needs for- 
giveness, cleansing and every re-enforcement of his 
nature? Baptism feeds the inner life and gives a 
better outer environment. 

We begin to encompass the real meaning of Bap- 
tism when we pass over the controversial aspects 
and think of it in relation to character and per- 
sonality. What does not contribute to character 
and life has no place in the divine economy. In 
the New Testament ‘‘nothing moves with aimless 
feet.’’ Baptism is both initiatory and dedicatory 
but it goes much further. 


1. It is a profound experience which, because of 
Spiritual intention, possesses a sacramental qual- 
ity. It is one of the most spiritual commitments 
by which the soul can express its devotion to God, 
and to his Church, and it undoubtedly has force in 
the making, development and quality of human 
character, yea, even of human personality. Char- 


BAPTISM, THE FAITH ORDINANCE 115 


acter is built by motives and actions. It is the 
deposit of prayer wrought into permanent reality 
by conduct. This being true, Baptism has a pro- 
found connection with character, for it contains 
all the great dreams and resolutions that can work 
constructively in the human heart. 


2. In Baptism one owns the Lordship of Jesus 
Christ, and girds himself with a great loyalty.. He 
becomes a member of Christ’s body, and hence 
roots his life in the soil of brotherhood. Since 
Baptism is an outward act it has important social 
implications. The baptized are united in the for- 
mation of a sacramental society. In the last anal- 
ysis, Baptism is the declaration of the faith and 
the desire to make Christ the Lord of society and 
to establish the fulness of spiritual kinship between 
his followers. Loyalty and fellowship are the 
corollaries of Baptism, and their finest product is 
Christian character. (Acts 2:36-38; 10:36.) 

3. The second motive in Baptism is to break com- 
pletely with the old life of sin and follow Jesus 
Christ. It is a pledge to live the white life. It is 
the token given to God and society that one is de- 
termined to keep himself unspotted from the 
world. It is the effort of the true Christian knight 
to honor Christ by the white flower of a stainless 
life. It is in this sense that Baptism is for the re- 
mission of sins. Paul says in the sixth chapter of 
Romans that we are baptized ‘‘in order to crush 


116 THe DISCIPLES 


the sinful body and free us from any further 
slavery to sin.’? (Moffatt.) Baptism, therefore, 
is an act in which one resolves to give up at any 
cost, or at all costs, the life of sin. That is a heroic 
hour when one takes up such a battle! And in 
Baptism one seeks the divine aid which comes in 
the gift of the Holy Spirit that helps all our in- 
firmities. (Acts 2:38; Rom. 8:26-29; Col. 3:1-17.) 

4. Baptism expresses the passion to become 
united with Jesus Christ. The idea is a mystical 
one, but it is of the very essence of personal reli- 
gion. Nothing short of that has reality—nothing 
else satisfies the heart. The truly Christian soul 
wishes to enter into the earthly experiences of Je- 
sus Christ. This commits one to the sacrificial life. 
He becomes willing, he believes himself able, to be 
baptized with the baptism Jesus was baptized with 
(Mark 10:38-40). Love always wants the deepest 
union with the beloved. Baptism is a dramatic 
picture of the soul’s effort to enter into passions 
and experiences of Jesus Christ. ‘‘Our baptism 
in his death made us share his burial so that as 
Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of 
the Father, we too might live and move in the new 
sphere of life.’ (Rom. 6:4. Moffatt.) 

5. Paul taught that Baptism is the prophecy, per- 
haps even the beginning of the resurrection life. 
It is performed in view of that grand consumma- 
tion. When one is baptized, he declares that he is 


BAPTISM, THE F'AITH ORDINANCE 117 


searching for immortality, and he begins at once to 
live forever. The Easter lily has blossomed in his 
heart with deathless beauty and fragrance. Paul 
says: ‘‘If we have grown into him by a death like 
his, we shall grow into him by a resurrection like 
his.’’? (Romans 6:5. Moffatt.) One who enters 
into Baptism intelligently, humbly and _ passion- 
ately seeking for God, undoubtedly has stirrings 
of the eternal life awakened in him in an unusual 
way. (Romans 8:11.) 

6. Baptism is an experience that exalts the mind 
and makes the soul elate with the highest desires 
and resolutions. It has been ealled an enlighten- 
ment, and is near of kin to the ecstasy and pure 
rapture of the mystic; hence we read again in the 
New Testament: ‘‘If then ye were raised together 
with Christ, seek the things that are above where 
Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.’’ (Col. 
3:1-17.) It must be, therefore, that a quality ef 
heavenly mindedness is received in the service of 
Baptism. It stirs the innermost depths of being, 
_ and harnesses man to ideals and forees that de- 
velop him into Christlikeness. It gives visions of 
the open heavens, experiences of the Holy Spirit 
and assurances of acceptance with God akin to 
those which came to the Master when he was bap- 
tized in the river Jordan. (Matt. 3:13-17.) 


CHAPTER VIII 
THE LORD’S SUPPER, THE LOVE ORDINANCE 


HE sacrament, or ordinance, of which we are 

about to speak, which is observed every Lord’s 
Day in the churches at public worship, by eating 
a piece of a broken loaf, and drinking of the blood 
of the grape, is called by four wonderful names. 


Names by Which Known 


It is first known in the New Testament as the 
breaking of bread. (Acts 2:42-46.) It is still fit- 
tingly so ealled in many churches. In this supper 
Christ is our bread of life. The earliest name in 
Church history is eucharist. The word comes from 
the Greek word eucharista and means the giving 
of thanks. It was based upon the beautiful act of 
the Master himself, who, as he inaugurated it, gave 
thanks both for the loaf and for the cup, before 
partaking of them. (Matt. 26:27; Luke 22:17, 19; 
1 Cor. 11:24.) This tender, reverent, humble act 
of praise and gladness shows the spirit of the 
Lord’s Supper. Besides, the Lord’s Table is the 
place of the broken heart and the contrite spirit ; 
but it is also the place where one overcomes, and 
rises out of the wreck, with the joy of love and 
victory upon his lips. 

The favorite name of the institution is The 

118 


Lorp’s SUPPER, THE LOVE ORDINANCE 119 


Lord’s Supper. . (1 Cor. 11:20.) It is fittingly 
called a ‘‘supper’’ or a ‘‘meal’’ because it nour- 
ishes the soul of the disciple. It has been said that 
this was the name of the meal which accompanied 
the ordinance in the Greek churches, but that view 
is not strongly supported. It is plain that Lord’s 
Supper is a New Testament name. The Supper is 
also the ‘‘communion”’ because it is the fellowship 
of the soul with Christ. (1 Cor. 10:16, 17.) -This 
gives it the deepest significance, and the most pre- 
cious implications. It carries the social idea, as 
well as the religious, and puts the ordinance in the 
heart of the worship, as the emblem of reconcilia- 
tion and brotherhood. 


Origin and Perpetuity of the Lord’s Supper 


The occasion and place of its appointment reach 
the high water mark of spiritual friendship, of 
hope, of revelation, and of the assurance of divine 
forgiveness and love. It was the central fact, and 
the eternal influence, of the gathering in the Upper 
Room. 

It all bloomed out of the meeting and the hour, 
as naturally as the unfolding of a blossom. The 
apostles knew that the time of Christ’s departure 
was at hand, and in the solemn, mystical hour they 
were engaged in tender and sublime association. 
They clung close to him in the strange, awful pre- 
monition that he was soon to be taken away from 
them. As they were eating the paschal supper, 


120 THE DISCIPLES 


Jesus took a loaf and a cup, and declared that they 
stood for his body and blood, broken and shed for 
them, and then he fixed the acts of assembly, of 
breaking bread and drinking the cup, as a per- 
petual service for the Church. 


After his ascension he met Paul somewhere— 
possibly during his retreat in Arabia (See Gala- 
tians 1:11-17) and gave him the ordinance (1 Cor. 
11:23). Did he drink of the cup anew with Paul 
in his kingdom after the fashion of his self-revela- 
tion to the disciples in the supper at Emmaus? 
We cannot tell; but Paul declares that Christ gave 
it to him to deliver to the churches, to be observed 
‘*till he come.’’ Thus the ordinance is of divine 
origin, and it is for the disciples in all ages, and 
in all countries, to the end of time (Matt. 26 :26- 
29; Mark 14 :22-25; Luke 22 :14-20; and 1 Cor. 11: 
23-25). 

In it Jesus touched those chords and impulses 
that are eternal in the human breast. As long as 
love lives, the Lord’s Supper or its equivalent 
must abide. Probably the 14th chapter of John, 
and possibly the 15th and 16th were his table talk 
at the first communion. Jesus revealed the glory 
of the Father’s house, and pointed the way to it. 
He promised ‘‘another comforter,’’ the Holy 
Spirit, and he declared that he was so close to his 
disciples that they were his friends, and that they 
depended upon him as the branches upon the vine 


Lorp’s SUPPER, THE LOVE ORDINANCE 121 


for life and fruitage. His intercessory prayer 
(John 17) reveals the sentiments of unity that 
flow out of the Lord’s Supper. 

Not one soul there would ever want to forget 
that meeting in the Upper Room; and its flavor, 
sentiment, tenderness, and beauty have been per- 
petuated by this symbolic ordinance through all 
the centuries since. It has made every place wher- 
ever observed an Upper Room. It has made every 
home more sacred, because the Upper Room was in 
a private home. Jt caught the mood of love, the 
deep purpose of the crimson sacrificial life, and 
made it possible to reproduce them to the end of 
time. And it put the radiant hues of the after- 
glow of life, a touch of the eternal glory, upon the 
common heart. 


The Nature of the Lord’s Supper 


There has been much discussion on this point, 
and it has been contended by some that a real 
miracle, which changes the material elements into 
the actual body and blood of Christ, takes place in 
the elements. This view cannot be maintained by 
the Seriptures. Nor do experience and history 
support it. Nor is that kind of a miracle necessary 
to vitalize its power, and enforce its influence over 
the soul, and over the assembly of the saints. 

We are taught by the Scriptures to think of the 
Lord’s Supper under four different aspects. 

1. The Lord’s Supper is a memorial. By it, 


see THE DISCIPLES 


memory reflects certain facts. It calls up a great 
history. ‘‘Do this in remembrance of me.’’ Not 
in memory of the few sweet, illumined, love-gloried, 
wonderful hours in the Upper Room, but of ‘‘me,’’ 
the Master. It brings before the participant, in 
addition to the Upper Room—Gethsemane, the 
judgment seat and the injustice suffered, with that 
sublime self-mastery, by the Master, at the courts 
of Annas, Caiaphas, Pilate and Herod; the coarse 
and cruel treatment by the soldiers; and then the 
Via Dolorosa, and Calvary at last! It whispers 
to him who partakes of it: ‘‘Behold what manner 
of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that he 
should give his only begotten Son to die on the 
Cross to save us from our sins.’’ There are many 
wonderful monuments in the world, but none so 
great as this one, for it calls millions of hearts to 
memory, to prayer and to love. Says Dr. James 
I. Vance: 

The Holy Supper tells the story of Christianity in the 
days of the apostles, and in all days since the apostles, 
in Christian lands and in all lands, in its apparent de- 
feats and in its unquestioned triumphs, whether regarded 
as a doctrinal system or a ritual of worship or an ethical 
revolution or a passion for a person or an enthusiasm for 
a kingdom. However Christianity may be regarded or 
estimated or interpreted, its entire story is packed into 
and inseparably bound up with the simple memorial ob- 
servance of the Holy Supper. 

2. The Lord’s Supper is a communion. In the 
observance of it we get fresh contacts with Christ. 


LorD’S SUPPER, THE LOVE ORDINANCE 123 


We experience the Master’s presence anew. As 
he gave the emblem he said: ‘‘I shall no more 
drink of the fruit of the vine, until that day when 
I drink it new in the kingdom of God.’’ (Mark 14: 
25.) This idea is emphasized by Paul. He says: 
‘“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a 
communion of the blood of Christ? The bread 
which we break, is it not a communion of the body 
of Christ?’’ (1 Cor. 10:16.) 


The power of the Lord’s Supper was not ex- 
hausted in that Upper Room long ago. Millions 
of upper rooms have come since where the table 
is spread. Christ’s presence and deathless love 
are again made real in the heart’s satisfactions, 
in the sense of forgiven sins, and in the con- 
scious peace and exaltation that steady the soul 
and sing in the bosom. The Supper tells us and 
we come to know for ourselves, that He lived not 
alone in the long ago, but that He is alive today, 
and to live forever more. It is essential Christian- 
ity to have this personal relationship with the 
Master. This is why the Lord’s Supper has power 
to purify the worldly, to comfort the sad, to re- 
veal to the slow of heart, to inspire the discouraged 
and to unite the estranged. In one of George 
MacDonald’s beautiful stories, the Highland mys- 
tic had a passion to see God. He had sought him 
in sunlight and in moonlight, in the mountain and 
by the sea, but without satisfaction. But one day 


124 THE DISCIPLES 


in the communion they saw his face glow, and 
heard him say softly: ‘‘Father o’ Lights.’’ The 
vision had come as he partook of the Lord’s Sup- 
per. MacDonald’s parable is true. 

3. The Lord’s Supper is a fellowship. It has 
great social power and influence. It binds together 
by the power of the living Christ all those who say 
of Him, ‘‘My Lord and my God.’’ On the night 
of its origin, the disciples came into the Upper 
Room full of worldly ambition, of petty jealousy 
and of selfish pride. They did not want to wash 
each other’s feet, and each one sought the place of 
highest honor. But in the Supper they became 
reconciled to each other. A man who has sin in 
his heart, or lives in wrong toward his fellowman, 
does not find the Lord’s Table a comfortable place. 
The hour was too holy for Judas and he went out 
into the night. The sinful heart must either repent 
and forsake sin at the Lord’s Table, or else its pos- 
sessor must go away altogether. The signs of back- 
sliding are first felt and revealed at the Lord’s 
Supper. 

At the Lord’s Table all are equal. There are 
no reserved seats. The poor may rejoice that he is 
exalted—the rich that he is made low. And this 
spirit of fraternity does not stop at the church 
door. It is not left in the sacred place. It gets 
out into life and sets the spirit of charity, of broth- 


LoRD’S SUPPER, THE LOVE ORDINANCE 125 


erhood, of kindness, of sacrificial love to work. It 
is not only fraternalizing the Church—it is frater- 
nalizing society. Doubtless the Lord’s Supper 
will play a great part in the reunion of the 
churches. 


4. The Lord’s Supper is a covenant. As the 
Master gave the cup to his disciples he said: ‘‘This 
cup is the new covenant in my blood, even that 
which is poured out for you.’’ (Luke 22:20.) 
Perhaps nothing deeper, or more touching is said 
about this ordinance of the heart than these words 
of the Master. It is as if he said the new covenant 
which binds man to God and to Jesus Christ and 
which binds man to man is sealed in blood. Love 
can go no further than this and it is impossible 
that the divine love for man should be more ten- 
derly, more appealingly, more awfully, or more 
profoundly expressed than by the blood of the 
Master’s heart. What a cup of life this commun- 
ion cup is! When the men of Scotland were 
herded in the yard of the old Greyfriar’s chureh 
in Edinburgh on account of their loyalty to their 
faith, they made a covenant and signed their names 
in the blood drawn from their own veins that they 
would stand firm to the end. It was the seal of 
an oath that made history. The perpetual obsery- 
ance of the Lord’s Supper is the perpetual renewal 
of our covenant oath with God in His presence and 
in the presence of that which symbolizes the Blood 


126 THE DISCIPLES 


of the Covenant. How wonderful to partake of the 
Lord’s Supper! 

5. The Lord’s Supper is prophetic. ‘‘As often 
as ye eat this bread and drink the cup ye proclaim 
the Lord’s death till he come.’’ (1 Cor. 11:26.) 
The Master himself said in his talk at the first 
communion (St. John, 14th chapter): ‘‘And if I 
eo and prepare a place for you, I come again, and 
will receive you unto myself.’’ Thus, the Lord’s 
Supper symbolizes a great history, gives a deep 
experience, vitalizes the passion of brotherhood, 
reminds us of our covenant of loyalty and speaks 
a wonderful prophecy. Baptism prophesies the 
resurrection of the dead; the Lord’s Supper proph- 
esies the eternal communion. That which the soul 
draws from the Lord’s Supper abides forever, and 
communion in eternity will be a face to face ex- 
perience without the need of interpreting symbol. 


The celebrated and deeply spiritual English 
minister, Phillip Doddridge, who wrote some of 
our finest hymns, once dreamed that he had been 
called from earth into the Father’s house of many 
mansions. In the midst of its indescribable and 
satisfying splendors he was shown a door over 
which gleamed his own name in letters of gold. 
He entered and saw the walls covered with pic- 
tures of scenes in his own life on earth. One inter- 
ested him above all others. It was the picture of 
an incident in his own childhood. He had been 


Lorp’s SUPPER, THE LOVE ORDINANCE 127 


thrown from a horse upon a jagged pile of rocks. 
It had always caused wonder that he was not killed 
by the fall. The picture explained it. There were 
angels whose arms held him up and prevented the 
fall from dashing out his life. While looking at 
this picture in gratitude and amazement, as we 
shall view the miracles and mercies that guard our 
lives here below when we reach the celestial land, 
the Master came in bearing in his hands a cup of 
gold set with jewels and chased with wonderful 
clusters of grapes, glowing with the light that was 
never on land or on sea. The Master drank from 
the cup and handed it to him. He was about to 
drink the blood of the grape anew with the Savior 
in his eternal Kingdom. Then after the fashion of 
dreams he awoke. His soul was exalted with a 
great ecstasy and it was long before the spell of it 
passed from his spirit. 

Whatever the second coming of Christ may 
mean, the Lord’s Supper includes the idea of it. 
Christ will come again without sin unto salvation 
—he is coming again—he is here; but there will 
doubtless be a grand climax to history. We bring 
this before us in the weekly communion service 
and write it more deeply upon our hearts each 
time, that we shall see him face to face and know 
even as also we are known. To have this thought 
stirring anew in our hearts every week with power 


128 THE DISCIPLES 


and action is enough to give us the victory over 
the flesh, over the tempter and over time itself. 


Frequency of the Lord’s Supper 


Oft repetition does not make the Supper ‘‘com- 
mon’’ and dispel its power. Like prayer, like 
reading, like converse with our friends, it becomes 
more to us each timeit is observed. At first the 
Supper seems to have been observed daily (Acts 
2:42, 46) in private homes. It made these forever 
consecrate to the love that lays down life for its 
friends. No place seems more appropriate to have 
a Church than in the home and the Lord’s Supper 
is peculiarly fitting there. Every home ought to 
have an Upper Room which looks out into the home 
eternal. And ‘‘there is no place like home’’ when 
it has such a room. 

Holding the Supper daily seems soon to have 
been discontinued and it became a weekly observ- 
ance. However the New Testament lays down no 
law except that which may be inferred from the 
example of the apostles and the history of the early 
Church. These show that the communion was re- 
peated at least once a week. (Acts 20:7.) 

It is most desirable that it should be celebrated 
often. That deepens its hold upon the heart and 
fixes it in the habit of pure thought and noble 
practice. It exalts life and puts the purpose of 
righteousness into daily conduct. In Pliny’s ‘‘let- 
ter’’ or report to Emperor Trajan he says that the 


LorbD’S SUPPER, THE LOVE ORDINANCE 129 


custom of the Christians was to meet early in the 
morning on ‘‘a fixed day’’ and sing hymns to 
Christ as God, and bind themselves by a sacra- 
mentum to commit no crime. It is a thrilling idea 
to believe that perhaps with every heartbeat some- 
body, somewhere in the world is observing this 
great feast of love, of life, and of eternity; and 
that this has been so during the millennia of Chris- 
tian history. It gives us the sense that the whole 
race is the family of God—some of them away 
from home but being brought in by the shepherd 
quest of the Great Elder Brother. 


Who Should Partake of the Supper 


The New Testament allows each individual to 
decide this for himself. ‘‘Let a man examine him- 
self and so let him eat and drink.’’ Whoever is 
following Jesus, as well as he is able, in love and 
sincerity ; whoever is fighting against his sins and 
seeking to subdue all to Christ has the privilege of 
the Table. It is for all the weary and heavy-laden 
who seek the Savior’s peace. It is for the discon- 
solate and lowly. It is for the wounded and 
broken-hearted. It is for little children and tired 
mothers. It is for those who have broken their 
lances in the joust of life and have come in de- 
feated, subdued and disheartened. It is sunset 
and evening star to the aged. It is for all those 
who seek the homing heart of the Master who him- 
self had not where to lay his head. It is for all 


130 THE DISCIPLES 


those who hunger and thirst after God and heaven. 

The test for participation is whether one ‘‘dis- 
cerns the Lord’s body’’—whether one is perform- 
ing it with single and true heart as that which 
symbolizes and seeks Christ alone. The Supper 
can be forfeited in many ways but as long as faith 
and love and hope intentionally, gladly, intelli- 
gently awake and see Christ in the Supper one 
may partake of it and be assured that he is ac- 
cepted in the beloved. To partake of it without 
thinking of Christ, to partake of it simply as a 
‘‘ehureh ordinanee,’’ to partake of it because it 
is a custom or is expected of us, is to miss its depth 
and to eat of nothing but bread, to drink of noth- 
ing but the blood of the grape. We should not 
put the right to partake of it on the ground of fit- 
ness but on the ground of one’s need of Christ, and 
on the ground that Christ is seeking his disciples. 


The Lord’s Supper and Character 


We shall recapitulate the ideas, aims and pur- 
poses of the Lord’s Supper as we show its relation 
to character. It is an edifying, that is to say a 
buwding ordinance and its creations are more beau- 
tiful than all the works and arts of man. Un- 
doubtedly the ordinances belong to God’s methods 
of working in us to our eternal salvation. 

According to Jesus Christ everything in Chris- 
tlanity is to be judged by what it does for the in- 
dividual man and through him for the collective 


Lorp’S SUPPER, THE LOVE ORDINANCE 131 


man which we eall society. Jesus taught us that 
all ordinances, institutions, doctrines and practices 
are for the sake of man. ‘‘The Sabbath was made 
for man and not man for the Sabbath.’’ This 
seems to us pre-eminently true of the institution 
of the Lord’s Supper, which we have learned to 
think of as the love ordinance. 


There is not a fine thing in the human heart 
that is not stimulated by partaking of it because 
there is not a flower of love and sacrifice in the 
heart of God that does not blossom red in this cen- 
tral institution of the religion of Jesus Christ. It 
feeds the life on all that we cherish as of supreme 
worth. It inearnates a wonderful history, it keeps 
alive a profound experience, it rouses the heart to 
vivid hope by the golden prophecy of the second 
coming of our Lord. ‘‘He died for me, he lives for 
me, he is coming again for me,’’ the heart keeps 
singing while the Holy Grail of the Eternal Atone- 
ment is pressed to his lips. 

It develops forward-looking men. It fosters 
optimism. It kindles the fires of hope and good 
cheer in the soul of man. Can a man be a pessi- 
mist who partakes of the Lord’s Supper? For, 
beyond and above the dark outline of the hills of 
time, he will see the light that breaks from heav- 
en’s dawning morning and while others still stand 
in the shadows of night his face will be radiant 
with the coming day. 


CHAPTER Ix 
THE LORD’S DAY AND ITS VALUE 


As to the New Testament life is a 
trust. Everything must be dedicated to God 
and managed for his purposes in the service and 
elevation of mankind. All ordinances, institutions 
and redeemed lives must be used to express witness 
of God, to convey blessings and to help bring the 
kingdom of God to earth. To such end space, in- 
stitution and time must be dedicated. As an 
earnest of it all we have the consecrated place, the 
Lord’s house; the consecrated institution, the 
Church; and the consecrated time, the Lord’s Day. 
In this chapter we are to think of the consecrated 
time which we eall the Lord’s Day. 


Why Called the Lord’s Day 

There is something in a name, especially in what 
gives it and what it counts for after it has been 
given. The Lord’s Day is called by some ‘‘the 
Sabbath,’’ thus accommodating the Jewish name 
to the Christian fact. Sometimes it is called ‘‘Sun- 
day,’’ thus using the old pagan name for the new 
Christian idea. It is also called ‘‘the first day of 
the week,’’ after the reckoning of the Jewish eal- 
endar, thus making Judaism own the Lordship of 

132 


Tue Lorp’s DAY AND ITS VALUE 133 


Christ. But in the Christian schedule of time it 
is properly known as the Lord’s Day. 

There is a special and dramatic reason why it 
was called the Lord’s Day. In the Roman empire 
during the early days of Christianity, they had 
‘‘the Emperor’s Day.’’ The Roman Emperor had 
been deified by the superstitious, ignorant and in- 
competent people. The Caesars had apparently 
crowded out the gods and taken unto themselves 
divine honors. There was an attempt to make 
Caesarism a religion and the religion of the world. 
at that. The disciples of Christ refused to ac- 
knowledge such honor to the Roman Emperors. 
They put the name of Christ above every name 
and bowed to him alone as Lord and God. Hence 
over against this emperor’s day, and in defiance 
of it, they had a day which was to them, and has 
been ever since, ‘‘the Lord’s Day.’’ This is a 
beautiful, religious, descriptive and Seriptural 
term for this pearl of days as we shall see in study- 
ing its origin. 


The Origin of the Lord’s Day 

While the Lord’s Day partakes of the principle 
of the Sabbath, the day upon which God rested 
after creation, the national day of rest among the 
Jewish people, and their sacred day, it is distinctly 
a different day, conveying a different purpose and 
having a different spirit. While it still carries the 
idea of merey and good works, there is nothing of 


134. THE DISCIPLES 


hardness or repression in it. It was to be a day 
of freedom and of joy from the first. The spirit 
of the Lord’s Day is not the old spirit of Jewish 
rules but the new spirit of Christian inspiration. 
It continues all the economic values of the Jewish 
Sabbath with the added spiritual values of witness 
to Jesus Christ... St. Paul calls the Sabbath day 
‘a shadow of things to come’’ and says that ‘“‘the 
body is of Christ’’ (Col. 2:16, 17). 

The beginning of an entirely new conception and 
use of the sacred day is to be found in the teach- 
ings of Jesus Christ himself. When he was ac- 
eused of working on the Sabbath he said, ‘‘My 
Father worketh even until now and I work’’ (John 
5:17). He also declared ‘‘the Sabbath was made 
for man and not man for the Sabbath.’’ The Sab- 
bath day was never abrogated by special command 
or enactment. There was no need that it should 
be. It gradually decomposed only to recompose 
as the Christian day as indicated above. The Sab- 
bath day passed into the Lord’s Day—after the 
same fashion that many lower things of the old 
dispensation were lifted to a higher plane and 
transfigured with a new glory in the Christian dis- 
pensation. The death of Christ brought a new era 
which eaneelled the ordinances and festivals of the 
old Jewish era. (Colossians 2:14, 15.) 

The change from Sabbath to Lord’s Day came 
by the example and practice of the early Chris- 


THe Lorp’s DAy AND ITS VALUE 135 


tians. They kept the first day of the week as their 
holy day. (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2.) It was no 
doubt first suggested by the things which came to 
pass on the first day of the week. The chief, stu- 
pendous, creative, and revelatory powers of Chris- 
tianity were on that day made history. Jesus 
Christ arose from the tomb on the first day of the 
week and appeared to Mary and the disciples at 
Emmaus. Seven days later Jesus met with his dis- 
ciples in the Upper Room on the first day of the 
week. This shows that there is regard for times 
and seasons and times and places with Jesus 
Christ. Pentecost came on the first day of the 
week. Jesus Christ appeared to John on the 
Lord’s Day, when he was in exile in ‘‘the isle 
called Patmos’’ and revealed to him his eternal 
clory and made known the fact that he works in 
this world through the churches. Thus again the 
first day of the week was honored and marked out 
as the Christian’s sacred day. It is, for the first 
time, written down as the Lord’s Day in the book 
of Revelation. (Rev. 1:9-20.) From the way in 
which John spoke of it, it must have been com- 
monly so recognized by the Church. On the first 
day of the week, the Lord’s day, Paul met with 
the disciples at Troas and preached until midnight. 


These things show that as God blessed and hal- 
lowed the seventh day for the Jews, Jesus Christ 


136 Tur DISCIPLES 


consecrated and glorified the first day for his 
Church, and it became their day of rest and wor- 
ship—a day forever fragrant with the spices 
brought to the tomb by the holy women; forever 
a fresh beginning, bright with the thought of 
strong, radiant angels; and forever calm and 
sweet with the sense of the Great Presence; for- 
ever glorious with the message that the power of 
death is broken; and that Jesus is alive and to live 
forevermore (Rev. 1:18). Strange indeed, it would 
have been had not the day been adopted as the 
Church’s holy day. Tertullian, one of the greatest 
early churchmen, sums up the matter by saying: 
‘“We keep the first day of the week as the Sabbath, 
instead of the seventh, because our Lord arose 
from the dead on that day’’ (about 195 A. D.). 


We are to regard the day as of divine origin, 
with all spiritual purpose and value for man. But 
it was never imposed upon man as an obligation. 
It was offered to him as a blessing and as an ex- 
pression of God’s love and grace. It conveys the 
idea that God is seeking the fellowship of man and 
thus it puts upon all Christians the greatest of all 
obligations—the obligation to meet God’s offer, to 
show an exalted spirit, and to seek those things 
which are above, where Christ is, seated on the 
right hand of God. To be trusted to do right with- 
out a mandatory obligation puts one under the 


Tue Lorp’s Day AND Its VALUE Ao t 


strongest obligation of all. It challenges his honor, 
his gratitude and his loyalty. 


The Object of the Lord’s Day 

The Lord’s Day was given to satisfy the phys- 
ical, social and spiritual needs of man. Our Mas- 
ter settled that in the principle enunciated con- 
cerning the Jewish Sabbath by which he rescued 
it from the mass of traditional regulation which 
had obliterated its true purpose. He said: ‘‘The 
Sabbath was made for man and not man for the 
Sabbath.’’ As absolute necessity required, the 
Sabbath might be ‘‘broken.’’ The law of the need 
of humanity takes precedence over all other laws. 
This idea can be easily abused but it cannot be 
abused without harm to him who does so and with- 
out hurt to the Church, the home and society in 
general, 


Physical Blessings of the Lord’s Day 


No influence of Christianity bears more or richer 
blessings to the individual and society than the 
Lord’s Day. It ministers to man’s physical need. 
It gives rest from toil and renews his springs of 
energy. The bow that is always bent loses its elas- 
ticity and its efficiency. It cannot send the swift 
arrow singing to its work and will finally snap 
long before the end of its possible term of life. It 
is thus with the man who never stops to rest. He 
becomes stolid, his work is poor, and freshness and 


138 THe DISCIPLES 


power pass away from his mind, heart and body. 
The Lord’s Day restores man and keeps him eager 
and fit. It adds beauty to youth, vigor to man- 
hood, and sweetness to old age. 

The economic value of the Lord’s Day makes it 
an obligation upon all people. It prolongs life and 
makes work joyful. It helps to make a sturdier 
and healthier race. The French people are smaller 
than the other European peoples except in South- 
ern Italy, which has been ruined by war—and is 
facing obliteration in the course of a few cen- 
turies unless some wise thinker finds a way to over- 
come its decay. It is nervous, excitable and ever 
ready to break into disorder. This is due in large 
measure to the destruction of the Lord’s Day, to 
wine and to immorality. When France took the 
Lord’s Day away from her people she gave the 
nation a blow from which it has never recovered. 
One of the mightiest aids in making the greater 
race for which we wait is the Lord’s Day. In our 
own country, a good degree of our labor trouble is 
caused by ignoring the claims of this day. Men 
eannot work all the time without dangerous dis- 
content. 

We can do more and better work in six days 
than in seven. When work become irksome it is 
poor in quality and less in quantity. Money made 
by unnecessary work on the Lord’s Day is ‘‘ill- 
gotten gain.’’ It is peculiarly degraded and evil 


THE Lorp’s Day AND Its VALUE 139 


because it comes as the result of robbing men of 
their God-given rights of freedom and rest. In 
many instances the curse of blood rests upon 
money so made because it is the result of exploiting 
helpless men, women and children. 

The Lord’s Day ministers to man’s happiness. 
What a drudgery life would be if there were not 
one day to lift up the back, tired and bent from 
toil. The man who has no Lord’s Day finally loses 
the sense of freedom in the petty and galling tyr- 
anny of little things. Such a man is in a bondage 
as bitter as chains. The spirit of the Lord’s Day 
should be a glad, though not a trivial spirit. If 
there were not a day of rest, of recreation, of free- 
dom from business responsibility, there would be 
little happiness in most lives and none at all in 
some lives. Humboldt very truly said: ‘‘It is as 
unreasonable as it is inhuman to work beyond six 
days weekly.”’ 


Social Blessings of the Lord’s Day 

The Lord’s Day affords opportunity for social 
improvement. It ought to be used to strengthen 
the ties that bind families together. Parents and 
children should know one another, and the love that 
makes the most beautiful institution in the world 
is made sure by association. In some families the 
members are strangers to one another. All week 
the father is at business, the children at school and 
the mother alone. Then college days come and that 


140 THe DISCIPLES 


is the virtual separation and seattering of all from 
the home roof. Well for a family if in the times 
when it is possible they come to know each other 
fully and sympathetically. The Lord’s Day af- 
fords the best opportunity for this. It may thus 
help to bring the world of which Frances EH. Wil- 
lard dreamed—a world full of happy homes. 


The Lord’s Day should be a day of loving kind- 
ness to the sick. Hospitals can be visited and 
flowers, the language of sentiment and love, be 
given to cheer and comfort the afflicted. Neigh- 
bors and friends may be drawn together. Prob- 
ably most of the good deeds that will put people 
on the right hand in the day of judgment are done 
on the Lord’s Day. (Matt. 25 :31-46.) 


3. Above all, the Lord’s Day is intended to be a 
day of fellowship with God. This should be first 
of all a personal matter. Of course, every day 
ought to have its devotions—its ‘‘God’s Minute,’’ 
but it is necessary to give much time to the cultiva- 
tion of one’s soul. There is a personal relationship 
which each one sustains for himself with God. 
The Lord’s Day affords the best echanee to fulfill 
that high duty to one’s self. The soul must have 
its still times. ‘‘Be silent to God—let him mould 
thee.’? With such hours may come an exaltation 
that will conquer circumstances and enable the 
soul to explore the infinite. 


St. John, the divine, was in the spirit on the 


THE Lorp’s Day AND Its VALUE 141 


Lord’s Day and got the vision of the eternal Christ, 
heard voices of song and teaching, and renewed 
his courage by coming to know that Christ was in 
the midst of his Churech—as the light in the candle- 
stick—and, therefore, that the Church would go 
on conquering and to conquer until the New Jeru- 
salem was fully come down from God out of 
heaven. That is the central idea of the Book of 
Revelation which is a Lord’s Day vision. What 
mattered it to the old apostle of love that he was 
shut up in the little isle? The vision revealed to 
him Christ going forth conquering and to conquer 
until all evil was overcome and the kingdoms of 
this world made the kingdom of heaven. This 
made him strong, patient, undespairing and in- 
vineible. It made his soul master of time, things 
and circumstances. It is one of the purposes of the 
Lord’s Day so to gird and renew men’s souls. 


The spiritual idea of the Lord’s Day is also ful- 
filled in part by taking account of one’s obligation 
to God. This may be inferred from the statement : 
‘‘Upon the first day of the week let each one lay 
by him in store as he may prosper.’’ This direc- 
tion was given in reference to a collection that 
was being made in the church at Corinth for the 
poor saints in Jerusalem. (1 Cor. 16:22.) But 
there is a permanent and universal principle in- 
volved in it. It suggests that those who have been 
blessed with money should meditate upon what 


142 THE DISCIPLES 


they owe to God. That requires review of one’s 
successes and failures in life and of one’s depend- 
ence upon God. It means that the Lord’s Day 
must be used by us as a time when we by definite 
thought and decision consecrate our money and 
our lives to God. 


What a great revolution it would work in most 
lives if every Lord’s Day morning before ‘‘the 
Sunday paper’’ has blunted the feelings by its 
material fascinations men would reverently exam- 
ine themselves to see how their bank accounts 
stand in the sight of God—what they owe him and 
what they should give to the Church, what indeed 
they should do with their money week by week as 
they earn it. That would double their power and 
joy and make their money a source of happiness to 
themselves and to the world. 


The Lord’s Day is church day. It is appointed 
for a day of witness-bearing. It 1s a day for get- 
ting acquainted with one’s friends religiously. The 
apostles and the apostolic churches met each Lord’s 
Day to break bread. The Lord’s Day is set for 
communings in the sanctuary. The Lord’s Table 
is spread and we are to partake of it. This prac- 
tice was part of the secret of the wonderful power 
and progress of the early Christians. The prac- 
tice was so widespread and persistent that the 
celebrated Greek preacher Chrysostom ealled it 
dies panis or ‘‘the day of bread.’’ On that day 


THE Lorp’s Day AND ITs VALUE 143 


also the Word is preached that our souls may live. 
Every Christian should assemble with his fellow 
Christians. This makes the Lord’s Day a per- 
petual witness to the reality of Christ and the love 
of God in the hearts of men. What a wonderful 
witness to the power of religion it is when millions 
of little children, and millions of men and women 
rise up and go to church on this ‘‘ welcome, delight- 
ful morn.’’ It is living witness to Christ’s Lord- 
ship and his Saviorhood and no one ean think about 
it and not be impressed. Without the Lord’s Day 
people would soon become selfish, the world would 
vo back to paganism and mankind be smothered 
with materialism. If we stop to commune with 
God one day of the week, we shall not forget him 
the remaining six. 


A Great Christian Opportunity 


The Church has no greater opportunity than 
that of the Lord’s Day. ‘‘ Without the Lord’s 
Day, the centuries never could have passed down 
to us that vivid memory of Jesus which is still the 
world’s supreme incentive to nobility, and by neg- 
lecting that day we dim his memory for the gen- 
erations to come.’’ Voltaire is quoted as having 
said: ‘‘There is no hope of destroying the Chris- 
tian religion so long as the Christian Sabbath is 
acknowledged and kept by men as a sacred day.”’ 

The Lord’s Day should therefore be used indus- 
triously, energetically, religiously for the benefi- 


144 Tse DISCIPLES 


cent ends that bless humanity with larger love for 
man and God. The fact that the wheels of indus- 
try, for the most part, cease their noise and re- 
lease millions to leisure is not only an enforcement 
of the gospel the Church preaches but it affords 
a chance to get at men, women and children with 
the words of life. To allow the day to become lit- 
tered and clogged with worldly things, or taken 
up with coarse pleasures and grovelling quest of 
money is to poison life at its fountain and to cause 
the deterioration of personal, home and national 
character. The Church can make little progress 
without this day, and all the finer Christian feel- 
ings will become blunted if it is not properly ob- 
served. The Lord’s Day is a test of character and 
a builder of character and we rise or fall according — 
to the way we use it. This was the view of Abra- 
ham Lincoln, who said: ‘‘As we keep or break the 
Sabbath we nobly save or meanly lose the last hope 
by which man rises.’’ Philip Schaff, a great 
Christian scholar, said: ‘‘Next to the Chureh and 
the Bible, the Lord’s Day is the chief pillar of 
society.’ 

We must guard the day as the bulwark of our 
liberties, the spring of our sweetest delights, the 
constructive power of our highest character and 
the temple day in which we get new and inspiring 
visions of God the Father and Jesus Christ the 
Lord. 


CHAPTER X 
JOINING THE CHURCH 


T will be useful to study the question of joining 
the church. By the church we here mean the 

local church, the suecessor to the kind of church 
deseribed in the New Testament. It is necessary 
to emphasize this idea in order to correct certain 
loose notions that have crept into the general way 
of thinking about the church and membership in 
it. 

One may hear men say that they believe in Jesus 
Christ but that there is no necessity for the Church. 
‘*My religion is between God and myself,’’ ‘‘I ean 
worship without the Church,’’ are expressions oft 
heard today. The secretary of a labor organiza- 
tion said to the writer: ‘‘Jesus Christ is all right 
but I have no use for the Church.’’ We also often 
hear that one ean be as ‘‘good out of the church 
as in it.’’ And that erroneous thought, so disre- 
spectful to Jesus who built the Chureh, who loved 
it, and who gave himself up for it, soon becomes 
the conviction that one can live a better life out of 
the Church than he can as a member of it. This 
is more than the self-righteousness of the egotistic 
natural man; it is the Pharisaism of Satan. 

All arguments against joining the echureh will 

145 


146 THe DISCIPLES 


vanish away when one considers fully what it 
means to be a member. 


What It Means to Join the Church 


To join the church is to make definite enlistment 
in this local body by an overt act, by a visible 
alignment with others who have dedicated their 
lives to the laws of the Master. It is to agree to 
the doctrines and ideals of the church, to submit 
to its initiatory act, to adopt its standards of life, 
and to covenant to enter into the works and re- 
sponsibilities and aims of the organization. It is a 
eovenant of brotherhood and the establishment of 
communion with God. It is the investment of life 
with a great loyalty. To join the church is to 
matriculate in Christ’s school and to enlist in 
Christ’s service. It is to put one’s self at Christ’s 
command. 


Why Join the Church 


1. Because it is God’s way of saving his children 
and of building up the new humanity. ‘‘The Lord 
added to them day by day those that were being 
saved.’’ (Acts 2:47.) People were not only called 
to a confession of faith but to a commitment of 
life, which is seen and certified by joining the 
ehurch. 


2. One joins the church for the sake of Christ. 
It was his way. He said, ‘‘I will build my 
ehurch.’’ Those who refuse to join the church, 


JOINING THE CHURCH 147 


really, therefore, refuse to let Christ have his way 
with them. Jesus wanted his followers to confess 
him before men. (Matt. 10:32, 33.) There is 
something in it precious to him and it is the chief 
way of testifying for him. To want to be a Chris- 
tian and remain out of the chureh looks too much 
like wanting Christ’s blessings, but denying Christ 
himself. If we love Christ we will join his band of 
disciples. What an awful hour that was when 
Peter denied being with him. (Matt. 26:69-75.) 
But no worse than denying his people today. 


3. One should join the chureh for the sake of 
the community and of the men and women who do 
not know how to manage their lives. One socializes 
his personal, religious experience, when he joins 
the church. He makes his faith a fact and a force. 
He is glad to take a step in which he would have 
others follow him. Somebody is always waiting 
to see what you will do in order that he may be 
able to decide what to do. The man who wilfully 
and carelessly stays out of the church is the great- 
est stumblingblock in the world. The man who 
refuses to join the church refuses to light the 
lamps of the temple that will show men the path 
of life. The man who keeps out of the church 
lives in the jungle and helps to obliterate the trail 
which leads to the city of God. 


4. One joins the church for his own sake. No 
man can do great things without the help of others. 


148 THE DISCIPLES 


To join the church is to get the strength and life 
of all poured mto one’s own personal power and 
feeling. One will learn more at school than in 
solitary study. It takes the influence of others to 
keep up our own enthusiasm. Joining the church 
takes the indefiniteness out of life. It tends to de- 
liver us from desultoriness. It puts one in a flock 
where he is safe. Indefinite people are always in 
peril. Vague goodness finally fades out entirely 
and then becomes easy sport to temptation. Join- 
ing the church commits one openly to the practice 
of his own convictions, and lets his neighbors know 
exactly what he would do with his life. It gives 
point to his purpose. 

And the way to get fulness of joy out of one’s 
religion is to join the church and fulfil its life. 
Spiritual isolation is the worst of all loneliness 
and the most dangerous. Edward Rowland Sill, 
speaking of his spiritual aloofness wrote to a 
friend: 

For my part I long to ‘‘fall in’’ with somebody. This 
picket duty is monotonous. I hanker after a shoulder on 
this side and the other. 

For power, for influence, for convictions, for 
safety, for joy one should join the church. 

5. Religion would die out in this world without 
an organization to foster it and to promote it. If 
there were no organized government, there would 
be no patriotism. The man without a country 


JOINING THE CHURCH 149 


would have nothing to love. The church visual- 
izes religion, and makes it a foree to be seen and 
felt. It has been the mightiest power for good that 
ever entered the arena of time. But if all the early 
Christians had been like the rich young ruler who 
was asked to follow Christ and would not do so, 
there would never have been a church at all. 
Without a chureh religion could not have been 
propagated. 


Who Is Fit to Join the Church 


Perhaps no one pushes the idea to its fullest im- 
plications. But that is the wrong way to look at 
it. We need the church more in our weak, crude, 
undeveloped hours, than in our strong, ripe, ma- 
tured hours. 


There are many things to believe and to resolve 
when one would be fit to join the church, but these 
are all such as the conscience approves and all 
good men applaud. 


The following general statement of fitness to 
join the church from ‘‘Outlines of Social Theol- 
ogy’’ by William DeWitt Hyde, is good: 


Membership in the church is the privilege of all who 
accept the will of the Father as the rule of their lives; 
who acknowledge Christ as the revealer and interpreter 
of the Father’s will; and who receive the Spirit of love 
as the substance of the new life in which the will of the 
Father and the example of the Son is to be reproduced 
in themselves. 


150 THe DISCIPLES 


That is, one is fit to belong to the church if he 
believes in God, aecepts Christ and receives the 
Holy Spirit. 

One should believe in the Bible when he joins the 
church, for the Bible is the rule of faith and prac- 
tice for the church. One is fit to join the church 
when he gives up his life to Christ and wishes to 
follow him. It is not a question of the degree of 
one’s goodness when he would join the church, but 
of his love of God, his passion for Christ, and his 
love of the brethren. One must be willing to be a 
spiritual democrat and to practice brotherhood to- 
ward the weakest and lowliest. 

Speaking in a special and specific way—one is 
fit to jom a church when he believes in the beliefs 
of the church, when he is in agreement with its 
practices, customs, ideals and interpretations and 
when he is willing to share its burdens and re- 
sponsibilities. One is never fit to joi a church 
until he is willing to come in by the church’s way 
instead of dictating his own. 

One is fit to join the church when he wishes to 
do so in order to be part of the big, world-inclusive 
programs of the church. 


How to Join the Church 

Nothing is more important than that we under- 
stand this point. We are all proud enough to 
want to invent our own way into the church. But 
there are very open and definite steps to be taken. 


JOINING THE CHURCH 151 


One does not merely drift into the church. He 
is not a member of the chureh simply because he 
is a good man. Being born of Christian parents 
does not give one membership in the church. The 
church is made up of those ‘‘who were born not of 
blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will 
of man but of God.’’ (John 1:18.) Joining the 
church is a spiritual step that must be prepared 
for and earried out spiritually. We make the mat- 
ter too easy, too matter of fact, too materialistic 
today. Joining the church is not like joining a 
lodge, or a political party, or a college fraternity. 
It is a profound spiritual experience, a vast and 
wonderful spiritual enterprise, an adventure of the 
soul in the service of the weak, the practice of 
brotherhood and the worship of God. 

1. In order to join the church one must believe 
with all his heart that Jesus is the Christ, the Son 
of the living God, and openly take him as Master 
and Lord. Let no one be beguiled into the belief 
that a mere kindly disposition is enough to entitle 
him to chureh membership. He must believe in 
Christ and trust him as God manifest in the flesh. 
Belief is a wonderful inner state. It calls out all 
the energy of the soul and when it becomes faith 
it polarizes one about Jesus Christ. We come to 
the church through Christ and not to Christ 
through the church. 

2. The next step is renunciation. That means 


152 THE DISCIPLES 


definite determination to part company with the 
world. Inwardly it is repentance, outwardly it is 
reformation. Renunciation means giving up some- 
thing. It is giving up the lure of the world, the 
flesh, and the devil. It is a thoroughly misleading 
and tremendously dangerous deception that there 
is nothing to give up when one joins the church. 
The church is both a sacramental and a sacrificial 
society. 

There are things known and acknowledged by 
all to be wrong. These, of course, must be given 
up. 

And sometimes even the good must be given up. 
That is where sacrifice comes in. The lower good 
must be put away in order that the higher good 
may come. One might have to give up busmess, 
which is good, in order to be a minister or a mis- 
sionary which is a higher good. We may have to 
abstain from food, or innocent amusements, or 
visiting certain places for the benefit of our broth- 
ers, who cannot do many things we may be able 
to do, without harm to themselves. We must give 
up liberty itself, dear as it is to us, for the sake of 
love. 

There are sins of the spirit, sins of society, sins 
of imagination, sins of the heart to be renounced 
in order to join the church. 

The renunciation may not deliver us at onee— 
but we declare war against our sins and fight it 


JOINING THE CHURCH es 


out with them if it takes all the length of life to 
do so. 

One does not have to be good to join the church, 
but he must be striving with all his being to grow 
nto goodness—to grow Godward, to become Christ- 
like. The church is really made up of men and 
women who are fighting to overcome themselves 
and their environment in order to attain unto per- 
fection. 


3. The next step is confession and dedication. 
No hour of a man’s life is finer than that in which 
he becomes a confessor of the faith. He puts his 
life out into the sunlight. Confession was one of 
the hardest things in the early church. It was the 
point where men preached their first sermon and 
where their purposes and intentions became known 
unto their neighbors and erstwhile friends. In 
early days, people paid their lives for the privilege 
of confessing Christ. It does not go as far as that 
today ; but if the confessor is in earnest it will cost 
something. It is the great hour of adventure in 
the quest of a spiritual character. One throws 
himself into the sea of life at the word of Christ. 


Confession means that one is willing to pay the 
price in order to keep his faith in Jesus Christ. 
There is a wonderful picture which portrays this. 
It is in the early days of Christianity. The young 
and beautiful Roman girl is on trial before the 
emperor. Her lover stands at her right whisper- 


154. THE DISCIPLES 


ing in her ear. She is being forced to choose be- 
tween Christ and becoming a vestal virgin in the 
service of Diana, or Christianity and death. The 
girl’s pure uplifted face foretells her decision. It 
is her confession of Christ and her renunciation of 
all that rivals him. In order to join the church 
one must renounce the world at any cost. That is 
why it is sublime to be a church member. 

4. The crowning act of belief, faith, trust, re- 
pentance, renunciation and confession in order to 
join the chureh, is baptism. This was always 
given by the church and accepted by the candi- 
date as the final step into the church. ‘‘ Baptized 
into Christ’’ is the description. ‘‘He that be- 
lieveth and is baptized,’’ said the Master. About 
3,000 were baptized on the day of Pentecost and 
added to the church. There is no record that any 
one in the apostolic days became a member of the 
church without baptism. 

And baptism was always immersion. Christian 
baptism is immersion of a penitent believer into 
the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the 
Holy Spirit. When one is properly received into 
the church the final step is by being immersed, 
having had the spiritual preparation and experi- 
ences mentioned in the preceding lines. 

The question has arisen in these days whether 
persons who have received affusion as baptism 
should not be fully accepted in our churches. It 


JOINING THE CHURCH 155 


has caused much discussion and not a little un- 
pleasant feeling. It is argued by those who advo- 
eate it that members in other churches show the 
fruits of the Spirit and are acknowledged to be 
Christians—therefore it is claimed, they should be 
received for the sake of Christian union and ful- 
ness of fellowship. This however overlooks too 
many important points and decides too many 
things In a summary way. It is based on senti- 
ment and emotionalism rather than on the 
Seriptures. Christian fellowship and church 
membership are different. The Disciples fel- 
lowship all Christians in many ways; but only 
a few are willing to do violence to the New Testa- 
ment way or to the souls of prospective members 
by inviting them into their churches without im- 
mersion. To do this adds to the unhappy divisions 
already existing and it substitutes the opinion of 
those who have received affusion for the actual 
facts and acts required by the New Testament. A 
New Testament Church should have a New Testa- 
ment Baptism. The divided church can never be 
reunited excepting on the words of the Master who 
built the church and whose it is. When the 
church leaves immersion it leaves universal ground 
and therefore commits itself to a divisive position. 
Besides, ‘‘open membership’’ tends to cultivate 
proselyting which degrades him that uses it and 
him that receives. It is not conceivable that a 


156 THe DISCIPLES 


conscientious person would want to join the chureh 
by special concession. One who wishes to be a 
member should come in the regular way. No man 
asks a lodge to alter conditions of admission in 
order that he may join. When a man passes from 
one country to another he must comply with the 
conditions of citizenship if he would become a 
citizen of the new country. We gladly acknowl- 
edge the good character of others, but to have re- 
ceived the Spirit and achieved all the Christian 
virtues does not absolve one from keeping the 
ritual Christ has established. Jesus never sinned 
and John thought that on the ground of his per- 
fection he need not be baptized, but Jesus said, 
‘‘Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness, ’’ 
and John baptized him. Cornelius received the 
Spirit as the apostles had, yet he was required to 
be baptized for that very reason. The higher one’s 
character the more his obligation to observe all the 
ordinances. No man ever gets above keeping the 
forms of worship and religious expression. And 
no man’s character can be so perfect that we would 
put it against a positive command of Jesus Christ. 
Christ’s word has greater authority than any 
man’s character. A man may be a good citizen 
but he is not allowed to vote without registering. 
No candidate can be so intensely and greatly pa- 
triotic that he can become president of the United 
States without taking the oath to uphold the con- 





JOINING THE CHURCH 17 


stitution. There should be uniformity and uni- 
versality in the form of Baptism for the sake of 
the Church universal. 

By using the Baptism of Christ and his apostles 
we may establish such a form and then wherever 
and whenever one sees it enacted, even by people 
who may not understand the common language 
of each other, this symbol will be understood. 
It would of itself be the universal sign that would 
ereate a bond of sympathy. 


The Greatness of Belonging to the Church 


1. In belonging to the church, one has dedicated 
his life to the highest things known to humanity. 
He pledges himself to live in the spirit and to lift 
the world out of the mud as far as his influence 
goes. And he is helping men to prepare to live 
forever. There is not a good principle, or passion, 
or aim of which one is able to think that the 
church has not championed. Its motto is: ‘‘F1- 
nally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, what- 
soever things are honorable, whatsoever things are 
just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things 
are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; 
if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, 
think on these things.’’ (Phil. 4:8.) 

Joining the church is the quest of the beautiful, 
the true and the good. The church has ever been 
the champion of fair play. It has kept the golden 
rule alive in the world. It is a sublime thing and 


158 THE DISCIPLES 


schools one’s heart and mind to search only for 
that which is pure, true and lovely. 

2. In belonging to the church one becomes heir 
to the championship of the great things for which 
the prophets and apostles lived and died. These 
great men flung from dying hands the torch of 
progress and truth and it is a supreme honor to 
carry it forward. In a true sense the mantle of 
Elijah and Elisha, Isaiah and Jeremiah, Paul, 
Peter and John and the martyrs and confessors 
of the heroic epochs of the church have fallen 
upon his shoulders. No greater distinction than 
this could crown one’s life. All the best people 
we have known and know were and are members 
of the church. The people of sacrifice, of unself- 
ishness, of purity of life, of good works, the people 
with the light of eternity in their faces are all 
members of the church. It is a distinction to be 
even an humble member of such a body. 

3. The church is a society of vast and colossal 
adventure. It is composed of men and women who 
live and act as seeing him who is invisible. The 
church member is part of all the big moral enter- 
prises undertaken in this world. And no matter 
how important one may seem to be if he is not in 
the church, he stands outside of the greatest move- 
ments of history and of his own times. A simple 
but interesting incident illustrates this. A book- 
keeper who was superintendent of a mission Sun- 


JOINING THE CHURCH 159 


day school became angry with the pastor whose 
ehurch controlled the mission, and he was about 
to be dismissed even from this inconspicuous Chris- 
tian service. But his wife appealed to the pastor 
to give her husband a chance. She said, ‘‘That. is 
the only thing that connects him with the really 
great things of life. If that is taken away he will 
sink into nonentity.’’ There was something toueh- 
ing in the appeal but we are here impressed by the 
idea that church. life connects one with the things 
that matter in this world. 


4. The church has had creative power by reason 
of the eternal truth it proclaims and the life it 
fosters and the Holy Spirit of God which has been 
given to it. It has survived the shock of dissolv- 
ing empires and falling civilizations and today the 
hope of the world is in what it will do and say. Its 
missionaries are in every land under heaven and 
there are no nations or tribes so low that some 
minister or worker of the church will not carry 
food, light, instruction, sympathy and love to them. 

The church has been fighting the good fight of 
faith now for two thousand years and its books 
contain the names of the greatest men of history. 
Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, have 
been martyred for the sake of its doctrines. It 
has fought and won all the great moral battles that 
have marked the progress of the race for the last 
two thousand years. It has always been found on 


160 THE DISCIPLES 


the right side of every moral question. It has 


grappled with some of the worst of the destructive 
forces at work in the world, and brought them under 
control. Here it is sufficient to say that ‘‘the church en- 
forced an ideal of self-mastery, understood at first with 
special reference to bodily purity, but capable of deeper 
and wider application; she severely condemned and 
finally succeeded in suppressing the practice of exposing 
and abandoning infants; she brought about an effective 
abhorrence of the barbarism of gladiatorial combats; she 
produced an immediate moral mitigation of slavery and 
a strong encouragement to emancipation; and she greatly 
extended the charitable provision made for the sick and 
the poor.’’ 


Under the church’s leadership slavery has 
passed entirely. By the moral force generated in 
this country the Louisiana lottery was destroyed, 
and the saloon has been overthrown in the greatest 
nation in the world. A new feeling of nation to- 
ward nation has been established and so much has 
the love of man been promoted that the leading 
nations of the world are ever ready to help the 
starving and the unfortunate. 


There are yet many evils to be destroyed. The 
‘“White Slave Traffic,’’ the drug evil that threatens 
the existence of the race, the brutal prize fight, and 
the materialism which is corrupting life at its foun- 
tain must be put down and it is the altruism and 
the abhorrence of evil that comes out of the church 
which has taken up arms against these monsters. 





JOINING THE CHURCH 161 


All great reforms must eventually come back to 
the church for moral energy, spiritual interpreta- 
tion and vital enthusiasm. It is the inspirer and 
director of social service. 

To belong to an organization like that lifts one 
out of pettiness. The smallest congregation hidden 
away somewhere in the hills, is a world force that 
Satan dreads more than an army with banners. 
When one joins the church he becomes ‘‘a 
consenting and contributing member of that body 
of Christ whose mighty redemptive ministry is 
destined at last to fill the earth with the glory of 
God as the waters cover the sea.’’ Those who re- 
fuse to join the church miss the supreme chance of 
life. They ‘‘miss the sunrise.’’ 


CHAPTER XI 
A GOOD CHURCH MEMBER 


HIS is a question of importance for many 

reasons. It rebukes those who say: ‘‘I am a 
member of the church, but I do not work at it 
very hard. I am afraid the pastor would hardly 
own me as one of his flock.’’ Searcely would one 
say this if he reflected at all seriously upon his 
words. Being a church member is a privilege too 
high to be treated in such a light manner. 


To define or even to describe a good church 
member is a difficult task. It is not alone to speak 
of personality but of personality enriched, beau- 
tified and enlarged by the redemptive, regenerat- 
ing influence of Jesus Christ. A good church 
member is like a cut gem with many facets, every 
one of which sheds a glory in any kind of light. 


About half the New Testament is taken up in 
teaching the practices and the duties of Church 
membership. As a general statement it may be 
said that the four gospels show us in the words 
and example of the Master what it is to be a Chris- 
tian and why to become one; the Acts teaches how 
to become a Christian; the epistles reveal the won- 
ders, the glories, and the demands of church mem- 
bership; and the book of Revelation forecasts the 

162 


A Goop CHurRCcH MEMBER 163 


victory of right over wrong, the establishment of 
the Kingdom and the final destiny and glory of the 
Christian. Of course, all these ideas belong to all 
the books of the New Testament in a degree—but 
as a working outline these divisions will be service- 
able. 


The Church Member Different 


There should be a difference between the mem- 
ber of the church and the citizen of the world. 
The outward difference is not always apparent but 
it is there, it is inward. Even if the life of the 
Christian is at times involved in inconsistency, he 
is still better than the worldly man for he is fight- 
ing his sin and his faults and trying to rise above 
his failures. We have seen church members who 
seemed far away from the image of Jesus Christ, 
and yet we have thought of them as heroic because 
they were fighting for their souls. A church mem- 
ber is to be accounted a good one, even though he 
may have grave faults, if he is earnestly and zeal- 
ously striving to overcome his sins. That makes 
the difference between him and the world and puts 
him far above it. 

Once Sir Walter Scott looked at a picture of 
Lord Byron. Some one criticised the picture—it 
was ‘‘not like Byron, it lacks lustre.’’ To which 
Sir Walter replied: ‘‘The lustre is there but it is 
not lighted. ’’ 

These words are not intended as an apology for 


164 THE DISCIPLES 


Christians who live below the standard, but rather 
aS an encouragement to them to be good church 
members by taking up arms against their short- 
comings. The world expects more of church mem- 
bers than of itself. Christians should do more than 
others because more has been done for them. (See 
Matthew 5:43-48.) They should live above the 
world, outdo it in forgiving, in loving, in self- 
sacrifice, in zeal for all that is good. Prof. Glover 
says in his book, ‘‘The Jesus of History,’’ that the 
early Christians ‘‘out-lived’’ the pagan, ‘‘out- 
died’’ him and ‘‘out-thought’’ him and he pro- 
nounces this ‘‘one of the greatest wonders that 
history has to show.’’ ‘‘He came into the world 
and lived a great deal better than the pagan; he 
beat him hollow in living.’’ This the good church 
member is doing all the time. The miracle is daily 
repeated. 


The Best For the Highest 


The inspiration for being a good church mem- 
ber is in the thought that one has set his heart on 
Jesus Christ and wishes to be like him. If there 
is anything worthy of our best in every way it is 
the church which the Master founded, which he 
loves and which he guides. We should give our 
best for the most worth while. A man should not 
sell his life cheaply. When Holman Hunt, the 
celebrated British painter, was a young man he 
dedicated his life to the motto: ‘‘My best for the 


A Goop CHuRCcH MEMBER 165 


highest.’ He painted many pictures and all of 
them religious but his supreme achievement was 
his ‘‘Light of the World.’’ He had given the best 
he had—his ripened, trained, enlarged genius for 
the highest he knew, the highest any one knows, 
the highest there is to know—Jesus Christ, the 
Son of the living God. 

A good church member will give his church his 
life at its best. Too many use their freshest en- 
ergy and finest thought in their worldly callings 
or in their pleasures and bring their worn and 
jaded selves to the services of the church. A good 
ehureh member will not so dishonor his church. 
He will put it first and not second. 


His Habits 


There is an outline of the spiritual exercises of 
the good church members who lived in the glow of 
the first beautiful dawn of the day of love in the 
world, and who therefore became the pattern for 
ehurch members for all time. It is in Acts 2:42 
and reads: 

‘¢ And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ teach- 
ing and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the 
prayers.’’ 

1. From this we reckon that one of the first. char- 
acteristics of the good church member is con- 
stancy. Nor can this be accounted the least of his 
virtues. He is like the geyser, ‘‘Old Faithful,’’ in 
Yellowstone Park. Others are intermittent and 


166 THe DISCIPLES 


uncertain but ‘‘Old Faithful’’ comes on the minute 
and never disappoints. He is the church member 
the pastor and his brethren ‘‘can count on.’’ Con- 
stancy in the church means to stand by it. And 
this is the making of causes. The shifty, fitful 
member neither gets joy nor power out of the 
church nor does good with his life. The North 
Star is apparently not as brilliant as some others 
but it is fixed and sailors steer their ships by it 
when it is dark. Constancy proves one’s earnest- 
ness and shows his faith. This has both steady- 
ing and inspirational power. State and Church 
are built upon dependable men and women. 
The Master said in one of his letters from 
heaven: ‘‘He who overcomes—I will make him a 
pillar in the Sanctuary of My God, and he shall 
never go out from it again. And I will write on 
him the name of My God, and the name of the city 
of My God, the new Jerusalem, which is to come 
down out of Heaven from My God, and My own 
new name.’’ (Rey. 3:12. Weymouth.) We have 
all heard men and women ealled ‘‘pillars of 
the church.’’ Greater compliment was never ut- 
tered and these are they who eventually attain the 
highest spirituality—the name of God, the new 
name of Christ is chased upon their stainless souls 
by the fire of the Holy Spirit. This shows what 
a church member may become if he will. 


Constaney means keeping on and therefore it 





A Goop CHuRcCH MEMBER 167 


wins the crown when others fail and turn back. 
Jesus forewarned his disciples that there would be 
many things to lure them, to tempt them, possibly 
to make them afraid. He knew how near to falling 
they would often be but he encouraged them by 
the promise: ‘‘He that endureth to the end, the 
same shall be saved.’’ Demas is one of the most 
unenviable characters in the New ‘Testament. 
‘*Demas hath forsaken me,’’ said Paul, ‘having 
loved this present world.’’ He may have come 
back to Paul later but his habit of vacillation kept 
him from being an ideal church member. 


2. The good church member according to the 
specifications in the Acts must be continually a 
learner. ‘‘They continued stedfastly in the apos- 
tles’ teaching.’’ This implies that one must be a 
perpetual student of the things written and 
preached by the apostles. The good church mem- 
ber never grows tired of sitting at the feet of the 
Master, nor of attending his school. He can never 
get enough of God’s word. It is sweeter than 
honey to him. 

The apostles’ doctrine or teaching is to be found 
in the New Testament. The gospels tell us the 
story of Christ’s life on earth and record some of 
his sayings. The sermons of the apostles and their 
epistles are drawn from this life, and give ex- 
planation and interpretation of it that the saints 
in all ages may be enlightened, purified and awak- 


168 THE DISCIPLES 


ened by the Holy Spirit. This was according to 
Christ’s own word in John 16:18, 14: ‘‘Howbeit 
when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide 
you into all the truth: for he shall not speak from 
himself; but what things soever he shall hear, these 
shall he speak: and he shall declare unto you the 
things that are to come. He shall glorify me: for 
he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto 
VOUS h 


All this means that a good church member is 
intelligent in the Word, and in the knowledge of 
the progress of Christianity in the world. Truth 
is neither provincial nor static and we must follow 
it all the time to make ourselves worthy of the high 
calling of God in Christ Jesus. 


This idea calls us to give heed to the lng 
word as it is spoken and taught, printed and writ- 
ten, by God’s ministers today. Jesus Christ set 
up the pulpit as the chief voice of the church. It 
is for the interpretation of his word and for the 
admonition of the people. To heed this admoni- 
tion would require one to attend church regularly, 
to hear the minister and to improve himself con- 
tinually by the opportunity offered in the Bible 
classes of the Sunday school. 

The good church member ‘‘knows his Bible.’’ 
The Word is a lamp unto his feet, a light upon his 
pathway. The pulpit is the tongue that calls him 
to action and the erimsoned eross is the sacrificial 





A Goop CHuRCH MEMBER 169 


symbol that goes before him in the great crusade 
of winning the world for God. 

Life must have much more than a good emotion 
or an honest purpose. It must have a sound, doc- 
trinal basis to make it intelligent, as well as pur- 
poseful. There must be light as well as heat, and 
knowledge as well as feeling. ‘‘The apostles’ 
teaching’’ is the good church member’s guide. He 
must honor his intellect by trusting it and warm 
his heart in the same way. Christ claims man’s 
intellect. Hence'he must have doctrine for his 
erowth and satisfaction. ‘‘Love the Lord with all 
your mind.’’ There is an intellectual hunger as 
well as a heart hunger. One must see as well as 
feel. 


3. The good church member practices the fel- 
lowship. 

(a) He is brotherly. He sympathizes with all 
who are in distress and withholds not his presence, 
his words, nor his gifts if by them he ean bring 
a little comfort to another. 


(b) He is loyal to his brethren. He believes in 
the ‘‘beloved community’’ and contributes his 
share to its power and beauty. ‘This forbids the 
spirit of faction, or schism and the unlovely habit 
of judging and finding fault. It requires the prac- 
tice of the 13th chapter of First Corinthians. The 
true church is organized love and a good member 
will, like Jesus Christ, love the church and give 


170 THE DISCIPLES 


himself up for it. We have known men to mort- 
gage their own homes to save the church building. 
We know one man who endorsed paper for the 
ehureh till the banks would not lend him money 
to enlarge his own business. There was a widow 
and she was highly praised by Jesus Christ be- 
cause she cast into the treasury all that she had. 
Thousands upon thousands of martyrs have laid 
down their lives for the Church. 


(ce) To this fellowship of the heart must be 
added the fellowship of the hand. The man who 
lives right in his church will give full co-operation 
not only in the public meetings with his fellow- 
church members but will exercise genuine co-opera- 
tion in every good work in which his church en- 
gages. He will not allow a few men “‘to do it all.”’ 
He will be a worker and not stand with his hands 
in his pockets while others are busy. He will be a 
soldier and stand up shoulder to shoulder with 
others who fight for the causes that call for men. 
He will help lift the loads, carry the burdens and 
make the great adventures required to Christian- 
ize the world. 

(d) To the fellowship of the heart, and the fel- 
lowship of the hand, the good member will add the 
fellowship of the purse. Every member of the 
church should help bear his proportionate share 
of the church’s financial obligations. Be it much 
or little he should give as God has prospered him. 


A Goop CHuRCcH MEMBER Hig 


If all were to do this the financial demands of al- 
most any church would be easily, promptly and 
happily met. Fellowship in the early church went 
so far as to partake of the wants of the people. No 
one said aught that he possessed was his own and 
they sold their goods and parted to each as he had 
need. The church is fulfilling this in various ways 
today—chiefly by striving to build a civilization 
from which poverty is absent. All the charitable 
institutions are fruits of the Spirit of Christ. 


(e) The good church member has fellowship, 
vote and voice in the management of his church. 
True fellowship implies democracy and that means 
that the voice of every member of the church 
should be heard in some way in every movement of 
the church. Plans of work and progress should be 
adopted at public meetings, giving every one a 
chanee to be heard, and then whatever the views 
held before such adoption, the plans should belong 
to all after a vote has been reached and a platform 
fixed. In a true fellowship no one seeks to have 
his own way. Rather all seek to have the way of 
Christ and work in that together. That would do 
away with the disposition to lord it over the 
ehurch and stop the leakage of power through un- 
reasonable contention and individualism. 


4. The good church member is regular at the 
Lord’s Table. There he keeps in tune with the in- 
finite—there he touches and handles things unseen. 


172 THE DISCIPLES 


The breaking of bread refers to the Lord’s Supper, 
which it seems was at first practiced daily by the 
early Christians. This did not last long and it 
became the custom to hold the Lord’s Supper on 
the Lord’s day at the weekly meeting of the dis- 
ciples. We have already discussed the value of 
this divine appointment for the Christian soul and 
will not here repeat the discussion. (See Chapter 
VIII.) Yet at the risk of repetition it seems well 
to say that no one may misuse or neglect the 
Lord’s Supper without dire spiritual consequences. 
This ordinance has wonderful power over heart 
and conscience as is attested by the fact that those 
who have done wrong generally avoid the Table 
even though all the time burning within from re- 
oeret, remorse, and self-reproach. To neglect this 
feast of the heart is to take the first step backward 
toward the world. When one does wrong, he 
should not stay away from the Lord’s Supper but 
repent of his sin and come to the Supper for spir- 
itual strength and renewal. 

The power of the Lord’s Supper is in the fact 
that it makes Christ central in thought and real 
to the heart. It cultivates the sense of Christ’s 
love and redeeming power. It is the forget-me-not 
of the Christian religion. Because Jesus requested 
it to be observed in his memory, its observance will 
show as well as test the good member. For the real 


A Goop CHuRCcH MEMBER 173 


test of a Christian, of a church member, is whether 
he loves Christ. 

). The good church member perpetually prae- 
tices the presence of God. In this he reaches the 
high-water mark of the spiritual life. Prayer is 
experiencing the presence of God. It is ‘‘talking 
to God with all the heart.’’ It is the essence of re- 
ligion for it throws the soul upon the grace of God 
in trust and love, expecting forgiveness, help and 
guidance. 

One of the earliest and most pleasing pictures of 
apostolic practice is seen in Acts 3:1-10. ‘‘One 
day Peter and John were going up to the temple 
for the hour of prayer,’’ the narrative commences 
and it ends with the story of a mighty miracle, and 
a divine sensation in the community. If a church 
could choose what, above everything else, it would 
have its members become, it could well afford to 
choose that they be praying men and women. This 
is the climax of beauty and power—or let us say 
—the soul of beauty and of power. A good mem- 
ber is a praying member. First, in the secret 
places where God alone sees and hears; and then, 
publicly where his prayer may lift souls less ex- 
perienced in the divine heavenward. The highest 
culture is the culture of prayer, as it is the highest 
power. 


The church has never had time nor place nor as- 
sociation that meant more than the prayer meeting. 


174 THe DISCIPLES 


It assures the presence of Christ, becomes the foun- 
tain of power, and pours about the gathered wor- 
shipers the atmosphere of heaven. The young con- 
vert should, at all costs, be regular in some of the 
prayer meetings of his church. The church which 
gives up its prayer. meeting is committing a sin 
against its young members. The prayer meeting 
was the life of even the early apostolic churches. 
(Read 1 Cor., Chapters 12, 13, 14.) 

There is no better type of church member than 
the praying man. He carries the suggestion of 
eternity with him and holds within his soul a con- 
viction of omnipotence. It gives him the sense of 
the presence and goodness of God and enables him 
to partake of the riches, the purity and the mag- 
netism of the divine nature. 

It was public prayer mentioned in Acts 2:42, 
and to it came all the Christians that they might 
light the fires of devotion upon their own altars. 
It is an education of the soul to be led in prayer 
by one who knows how to approach the throne of 
grace. The good church member will never get 
busy enough to forget to read his New Testament 
and pray. In this way he always lives by super- 
natural power. 


His Attitude to Life 


The ideal church member is an optimist. To say 
a man is a Christian is to say that he is happy. No 


A Goopv CHurcH MEMBER 175 


one more certainly misinterprets Jesus Christ and 
his religion than the man of gloomy spirit, and 
doleful outlook. The Christian life is a new life 
and its chief note is joy. 


One of the strongest contrasts of the Christian 
of the early days to the pagan was his happiness. 
He had found the secret of eternal joy and his 
freedom from eare, his ability to meet death with 
calmness and even with gladness, commended his 
life to outsiders. 


There is no place in which the superiority of 
church life is more apparent than in the joy that 
leaps from the heart and lips of the best type of 
church member. Faith gives freedom from eare. 
It does not worry. It sings in prison, it sings in 
the valley and shadow of death. Paul’s word was, 
‘*Rejoice in the Lord always—and again I say 
rejoice.’’ He wrote five epistles out of prison but 
not one of them was sad. They are like a cage of 
song birds when the sun falls through tree and 
window. 

It is the duty of church members to cultivate 
a cheerful and contented spirit. There are many 
things in the church to cause people to be glad: 
the good news of Christ; the sense of forgiven 
sin; the warmth and mutual help of fellowship; 
the honor and dignity of human personality; the 
discovery of things of eternal worth; and finally 
the hope of heaven. 


176 THe DISCIPLES 


He ts a Soul-Winner 

Every one who comes to Christ has a double eall. 
He is first called to save his own soul and secondly 
to save the souls of others. In the early church 
it would seem that every man and woman was a 
preacher. (Acts 8:4.) ‘‘Follower and bringer’’ 
might be used as a fitting description of a good 
member of the church. His ideal is Andrew, who 
‘‘findeth first his own brother, Simon’’ and 
‘‘brought him unto Jesus.’’? (John 1:41, 42.) The 
motto of the church training its membership thor- 
oughly would be ‘‘Every Member a Soul-Winner.’’ 
The song of the members should be the reaper’s 
song: ‘‘We shall come rejoicing bringing in the 
sheaves. ’’ 


Examples of Good Church Members 

The New Testament is rich in the record of ideal 
men and women. Naturally we think first of the 
leaders—apostles, evangelists, and preachers. But 
the list does not stop with these. The common man 
gets his inning in this new movement. Some of the 
examples of good church members are as follows: 
Barnabas, the business man, Acts 4:36, 37; Stephen, 
the deacon, Acts 6:8; Ananias, of Damascus, the 
praying man, Acts 9:11-18; Dorcas, the kind- 
hearted, Acts 9:36-43; Lydia, the religious busi- 
ness woman, Acts 16:13-15; an old roster of great 
Christians, Romans 16:1-16; Epaphras, a heart at 


A Goop CHurcH MEMBER 177 


leisure from itself, Col. 4:12, 13; Luke, the beloved 
physician, Col. 4:14 and the gospel of Luke; Phile- 
mon, the host of the saints, Philemon 4-7; a Chris- 
tian widow, 1 Tim. 5:9, 10; the Elect Lady, second 
epistle of John; Gaius, the prosperous of soul, third 
epistle of John; Jesus the Supreme Exemplar of 
Good Church Members, Mark 7:37; Acts 10:38. 


CHAPTER XII 
HOW THE CHURCHES WORK 


VERY Disciple should be a member of the 
church as it is represented in a visible, or- 
ganized body of people worshiping in a given lo- 
eality. This local church, commonly so-called, is 
a very real and practical body. It must have a 
program, a location, a house, and a vital connec- 
tion with the community in which it lives and 
works. It has its inner, confidential, spiritual as- 
pects and its outer, physical and business respon- 
sibilities. 
The Model for the Churches of Christ 
The model for the churches of the Disciples is 
found in the New Testament. According to 
this, the local church is a democracy ruled by 
Christ who is the head, guided in mind by the 
Written Word and led in the depth of inner ex- 
perience by the Spirit of God. Being such a de- 
mocracy, a part of the responsibility for the wel- 
fare of the church rests upon every member. In 
churches founded on the pattern of monarchies, 
such is not the case. Everything is ‘‘handed 
down’’ to the members and knowledge of the in- 
struments, the tasks and the methods are not es- 
sential. But in the New Testament Church it is 


178 


How THE CHURCHES WoRK 179 


not so. Every member helps to make the atmos- 
phere, to point the direction, to mark the goal and 
to modulate the pace. Every church is independ- 
ent and its organization sufficient to build up its 
own life in faith, hope and love. The Disciples 
have no ‘‘overhead government’’ and will not have 
one, believing that this tends to ecclesiasticism, to 
the suppression of the individual member, to polit- 
ical and mechanical management of the church 
and to the hindrance of initiative and the entrance 
of the Spirit. The advantages of the democratic 
polity are many and great but it also has special 
dangers and responsibilities. Self-control must 
reach a very high degree and the church must be 
well informed or it will go astray. 


Responsibilities of Leaders 

The leaders of the church must provide the 
membership with opportunities for a_ satisfac- 
tory degree of intelligence. At annual congrega- 
tional meetings the plans and purposes for the fol- 
lowing year are fixed, officers are elected, and the 
general outlines of the work made plain to all. 
Everything should be done in the open and faithful 
records kept. Where this is neglected the people 
are left in ignorance and cannot be expected to be 
zealous. By this lack the church is made weak, and 
fails to reach its highest goals. Often misunder- 
standings arise and they cause strife and division. 
True leaders will always seek to prevent this. 


180 THE DISCIPLES 


How Duties are Discovered 

The duties of the local church are determined in 
three ways. The first is by the general work of 
preaching the gospel and training the membership 
as laid down in the New Testament. The second 
is the need of the community where the church 
lives and works, viewed in the light of Christ’s 
teachings and commandments. The third is seen 
in the larger aims and operations that grow out of 
the co-operative effort of all the churches that exist 
and agree to work together in the Brotherhood. 
In this way each church is enabled to fulfil its 
mission and to call every member to some work. 

The member keeps informed by attendance upon 
the meetings of his church, by announcements and 
bulletins, by the visits of evangelists, missionaries 
and ministers and especially by the religious press, 
which brings tidings from the field—tidings that 
mark the progress of his own people—and which 
also mediate to him and his fellow members the 
interpretations and tendencies of thought that in- 
fluence the religious body to which his church be- 
longs. 


The Organization of the Church 

It is necessary also to know the organization of 
one’s church if he is to be a happy and useful 
member of it. The Church consists of Christ as 
the head, the officers given by him as leaders and 
the disciples at large as the body of Jesus Christ. 


How THE CHURCHES WORK 181 


The church must have officers. A list of these 
is given in the New Testament. Perhaps the 
church at Ephesus was the most completely or- 
ganized and the most richly officered of the New 
Testament churches. It becomes, therefore, one of 
our most impressive and instructive models. The 
officers of this church were considered special 
‘“‘oifts’’ of the crowned Christ (Eph. 4:8, 11 et 
seq.) to the people. This is the right view of the 
officers of the church—that they are not of human 
origin but of divine gift or granting. And Christ 
never gave his people better gifts than conscien- 
tious and capable officers. 


Church Officers 

The following officials are mentioned in Ephe- 
sians: apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, 
and teachers. Their duties in general were to pro- 
vide for the equipment of the saints, the business 
of the ministry, the upbuilding of the body of 
Christ, and the development of individuals to full 
spiritual stature in Christ. (Eph. 4:11-15.) We 
also read of ‘‘bishops and deacons,’’ (Phil. 1:1; 
Acts 20:28) and of ‘‘elders’’ (Acts 20:17) and of 
a ‘‘deaconess’’ (Rom. 16:1). The officers of the 
church today are evangelists, ministers, pastors or 
elders, and deacons. The apostolic and prophetic 
offices prominent in the beginning, the formative 
period, have been absorbed into these and are ex- 


182 THE DISCIPLES 


pressed through them in the enterprises and aims 
of the church. 


The Departments of the Church 


According to the New Testament, which contains 
both the model and the norm of the church, there 
are three general departments of service, and these 
constitute the framework of all our congregations, 
no matter what may be their general arrangement 
and outer form. These departments are the evan- 
gelistic, the pastoral and the benevolent. They are 
enlarged and subdivided as the conditions seem to 
demand but the ideas contained in them mark the 
lines of organization for all churches. 

All the functions of true church officers as they 
exist now or have ever existed were discharged by 
Jesus Christ when he was on earth and the present 
organizations are simply the effort to conserve and 
to distribute the power generated by Jesus Christ 
and to supply it to society in such a way that rt 
will perpetually work as a regenerating, redemp- 
tive force. The true apostolic succession 1s in the 
whole Church and not simply in officials and 
preachers. And it is not a question of orders and 
ordination but of the stream of life given by God. 
It requires all the Church with all its operations 
to fulfill Christ’s work and to convey the influence 
of his personality in this world. This is all im- 
plied in the teaching that the Church is the body 
of Christ. All offices and powers inhere in Jesus 


How THE CHURCHES WORK 183 
Christ and are his gifts perpetually renewed and 
constantly made effective. 
Let us consider the three departments of the 
church, according to the New Testament. 


The First Is the Evangelistic 


Jesus Christ himself was the first evangelist. 
Then he sent forth ‘‘the seventy’’ to preach. The 
apostles were foundation evangelists. Their 
preaching consisted largely of witness bearing and 
exhortation. Their chief aim must be the chief 
aim of the evangelist today, to preach the gospel 
and to win people to Jesus Christ. They must 
make the appeal which wins and brings in the out- 
sider. This is the promotion department, the re- 
eruiting service of the church. The first work of 
the church in the order of time was evangelism. 
The church was born in a revival. It was created 
and has been built by Jesus Christ, by the influence 
of the Holy Spirit, through the preaching of the 
Word. 

This also includes pastoral preaching. The man 
called the ‘‘pastor’’ today is properly the minister, 
or the evangelist. He exercises the prophetic office 
(Ephesians 4:11) which includes seeing, foretell- 
ing and especially forthtelling. The preacher 
should get his message from God’s word by prayer 
and study and should proclaim it to the world 
with the fervor and rapture of the Spirit. This 
was done on the day of Pentecost. 


184 THE DISCIPLES 


Under this head also belongs part at least of the 
‘‘Great Commission,’’ Matt. 28:18-20. The mis- 
sionary of the cross in foreign lands is pre-emi- 
nently the personality of God’s evangel. If the 
evangelist at home is ‘‘the herald of a passion,’’ 
the missionary or evangelist abroad is the preacher 
of a redemption—the glorious gospel, the light that 
is sprung up to those who sit in the region and 
shadow of death. Often the missionary is the 
martyr of a passion. 

Jesus Christ was an evangelist and the first work 
he inspired in his Church after his ascension was 
the fiery evangelism of Pentecost. The chief book 
for the evangelist is The Acts. It is full of fire, 
and life, and power and it should be the back- 
eround of modern evangelism. In it the modern 
evangelist must find his message and largely his 
method. 


The Second Department of the Church Is the Pastoral 


This department is charged with the teaching 
and training of all the members. Experienced and 
spiritual men, chosen by Jesus Christ and accepted 
by the church, watch over the souls that are new 
and young in the Church of the living God. They 
receive the convert from the hands of the evan- 
gelist and impart to him knowledge, awaken in 
him the desire to serve, and seek to restore in him 
the divine image. 

Those who direct this department of the church 


How THE CHURCHES WoRK 185 


are known interchangeably as elders, bishops, and 
pastors. The word ‘‘elder’’ is of Jewish origin, 
‘*bishop’’ from the Greek, and ‘‘pastor’’ from the 
Latin. 


Special care should be taken in selecting the 
elders. They should not be chosen as we choose 
officials of a worldly society, by the largest vote, 
but called only after deep prayer and faithful con- 
sideration of their fitness. Their qualifications are 
set forth in 1 Tim. 3:1-7. Their duties are given 
by the apostle Peter, 1 Peter 5:1-4. With such a 
character as that described by Paul, following such 
work as that set forth by Peter we have the ideal 
pastor and genuine pastoral work. No ealling is 
finer than that of an elder in the Church of Jesus 
Christ. 


Out of this department of church lfe—out of its 
influences and work—grew up Sunday schools, edu- 
cational institutions, schools and colleges in gen- 
eral. The church is not to aim to have direct over- 
sight of all these institutions but it sows the seed 
that contains them. It inspires men and women to 
found them. The church is the friend of enlight- 
enment. Christianity is the friend of science. 
The most of the great universities were started by 
religious influence. 

The church has directly under her guidance 
many millions of children. This is her tenderest, 
her most beautiful, her most important work. 


186 THkeE DISCIPLES 


Probably there is not and has never been a move- 
ment in the history of Christianity more important 
than the modern Sunday school. 


The background of the work of the elders should 
be the Sermon on the Mount, the parables and the 
epistles. These contain the substance of Christ’s 
teachings, and elders should if possible know them 
by heart. 


The elders also preside at the Lord’s Table, 
which is a holy duty no one should take up with- 
out clean hands and a pure heart. This puts the 
elders forth as guardians of the sacred rites of the 
chureh and as directors of the church’s worship 
and prayers. 


According to our custom there is a settled min- 
ister or ministers for each church or group of 
churches. He is usually known as the pastor. He 
is the regular preacher, and in his preaching he 
discharges the function of the evangelist at almost 
every service. He also performs the pastoral du- 
ties. He becomes minister of the church by popu- 
lar call of the congregation, usually on recom- 
mendation of a committee. After his acceptance, 
he remains as long as mutually satisfactory to him 
and the chureh. He resigns or is asked to resign 
when a change is to be effected. This is a very 
poor method but it seems to be the best way yet 
devised. The Scripture contains no precedent for 
the appointment of ministers for a local church un- 


How THE CHURCHES WorRK 187 


less it be the action of Paul appointing elders and 
leaving Timothy as pastor at Ephesus, and Titus 
as the pastor of Crete. 


The Third Department of the Church Is the Benevolent 


It is under the direction of the deacons. The 
management of the business affairs of the Chureh 
of Christ is also committed to them. The word 
deacon means one who serves and therefore it is 
one of the finest works in the world. We cannot 
think of any who render more desirable service to 
the church and to humanity than its deacons. 
They consecrate their business judgment to the 
Master’s enterprise and by so doing become the 
chief creators of the chureh buildings that help 
to give opportunity and stability to Christianity. 
The architectural achievements that have added 
so much glory and impressiveness to the Christian 
religion have in most modern cases been made pos- 
sible by the business energy, vision and consecra- 
tion of the deacons. 

The deacons provide the ways and means for 
the pastor’s support and they take the details of 
business management and of benevolent obligation 
off of his hands that he may be free to give him- 
self to the Word of God and to prayer (Acts 6:1-4). 

Many churches are suffering today for want of 
elders and deacons to do the work of the Church 
as indicated in this chapter. Too often the 


188 THE DISCIPLES 


preacher has had to act as elder and deacon in ad- 
dition to his own duty with the result that the 
pastoral work, the business and the pulpit have all 
suffered. One man is not adequate except in point 
of suggestion and leadership, to the work of the 
complex, active modern church. 

The story of the beginning of the diaconate is 
an interesting and instructive one. The office of 
deacon seems to have grown out of the effort to 
take care of the poor widows in the church at Je- 
rusalem. This work has enlarged through the 
years until it has become the chief influence and 
inspiration in keeping alive kindness and helpful- 
ness in the world. The deacon spirit, that is the 
service spirit, is penetrating and coloring society. 

The importance of the work and purposes of the 
deacons may be seen in the orphanages and other 
benevolent and charitable institutions of the world. 
There are many thousands of such institutions 
seattered over the face of the earth which are not 
directly connected with the Church, but there is 
not one which did not directly or indirectly grow 
out the duty, ideals, and work of deacons as out- 
lined in the New Testament. 


The germ of what we now call social service is 
in the work of deacons. Viewing work of the 
church as being directed in the three departments 
—the evangelistic, the pastoral and the benevolent 
—we see that it is organized to take care of every 


How THE CHURCHES WoRK 189 


want of man, body, soul and spirit. It contains a 
pertect ideal for civilization and it will likely prove 
the outline of the final form and methods of States. 

Intelligent and religious care must be taken in 
the selection of deacons. This is according to the 
first idea in the selection of the seven men, usually 
ealled the first deacons. (Acts 6:3, 4.) ‘‘Look 
ye out therefore, brethren, from among you séven 
men of good report, full of the Spirit and of wis- 
dom, whom we:may appoint over this business. 
But we will continue stedfastly in prayer, and in 
the ministry of the Word.’’ 


The character requirements for deacons are of 
the highest kind and correspond closely to what is 
demanded of elders. They are set forth by Paul 
in 1 Tim. 3:8-12. Too often the membership makes 
too little of character and reputation in selecting 
the deacons and always with hurtful results to the 
church. 


When men of doubtful character, or unsavory 
reputation are put forth as chureh leaders, it 
weakens the influence of the church and emboldens 
men of the world to do wrong. It brings upon 
such men when selected to lead, the criticism if not 
the contempt of all who witness the procedure. 
But glorious indeed is the reward of those who, 
fitted by nature and grace to serve in these high 
offices, enter upon them not as the adornment of a 
career but as an opportunity to serve God and 


190 THE DISCIPLES 


man. It. is better to be a doorkeeper in the house 
of God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. 

The deacons should make special study of the 
incident of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37) 
which may be thought of as the first idea of the 
Christian hospital. If the schools and universities 
grew out of the idea of the work committed to the 
elders of the church the hospital is the fruit of 
the diaconate. Christian doctors, whether formally 
elected or not, are real deacons of Christianity. 
The miracles also, most of which were mercies as 
well as wonders wrought upon nature and spirit, 
are to be especially studied. They show how far 
Christ would go to relieve the suffering of the 
world. He puts human need above everything 
else. The miracles are really the background and 
inspiration for all kinds of good deeds, and for 
the wonderful works of merey and healing in the 
world today. They are not only radiations of 
power from the throne but they are heart-beats of 
kindness from the Spirit. 


The Board of Officers 

The churches are guided in a human way by a 
body called ‘‘the board of officers.’’ This is really 
an executive committee composed of the minister, 
the elders and the deacons who have been duly 
elected by the church assembled for the purpose. 

There is a growing custom of holding an installa- 
tion service in public recognition of the leadership 


How THE CHURCHES WoRK 191 


of these officers and in order to impress the con- 
gregation and the officers with the importance and 
the deeply religious character of the work upon 
which they are entering. Sometimes this ceremony 
is accompanied by fasting and laying on of hands 
as well as with prayer and a formal charge to faith- 
fulness. Ordination means a great deal. It was a 
New Testament custom at least, and should still be 
practiced. It made for good order and impressed 
deeply those being so blessed with the church’s 
confidence. | 

The board of officers meets monthly in most 
churches or when called together to receive and 
review reports of the work, to plan for needed 
enterprises and to consider and pray for the prog- 
ress of the church. It is organized with chairman, 
vice-chairman and recording secretary. This board 
itself reports to the congregation with recom- 
mendations for future work annually. At this 
time election of officers for the congregation is 
usually held. 

A well organized board divides itself into com. 
mittees to which the various ministries of the 
church are assigned to be done. One of our most 
suecessful church boards has the following com- 
mittees: Baptism, Sunday school, Communion, 
Evangelism, Finance, House, Library, Member- 
ship, Missions, Music, Pulpit Supply, Social Serv- 
ice and Ushers. 


192 THE DISCIPLES 


The treasurer of the church and the clerk are 
the officers of the congregation. The clerk keeps 
its records. Huis duty is a very important one. A 
correct church roll is of value to the church and to 
each member. We have known court decisions to 
depend upon the church roll. And it is a genuine 
satisfaction and help, a real inspiration and dis- 
tinetion to have one’s name on the church books. 
At the direction of the church, the clerk usually 
issues letters of dismissal and commendation to 
members moving or wishing to join other local 
churches. 

‘‘Dropping members’’ from the church record 
is a very doubtful practice. Many need reviving 
but few, if any, ought to be dropped. Sometimes 
it is necessary to remove a member but it is an 
extreme procedure and must be done with the 
spirit of discipline in the hope of having such a 
one made better and not as a final rejection or 
punishment of him. (1 Cor. 5; 2 Cor. 2:5-11.) 


General Committees of the Church 


The rich, varied and manifold work of such a 
high character that looks to the renewal of hu- 
manity and to the establishment of the kingdom 
of God, calls for many laborers. It requires every 
member of the church to be active. The church 
being an organism creates its own forms and meth- 
ods of procedure. Being energized by the Spirit 
of God and seeking to accomplish such desirable 


How THE CHURCHES WorRK 193 


spiritual and social ends, it has grown into a won- 
derful body whose influence reaches to the ends of 
the earth. 


There are hints that every member of the church 
in. early days was assigned to some special work. 
At any rate, something was expected of every one. 
As we learn from Ephesians 4:16, ‘‘For he, Christ, 
is the head and under him, as the entire Body is 
welded together and compacted by every joint with 
which it is supplied, the due activity of each part 
enables the Body to grow and build itself up in 
love.’’? (Moffatt.) Every ‘‘joimt’’? must supply 
something, every member be a vital part. There 
must be ‘‘the due activity of each part.’’ 


This is further enforced by Romans 12:4-8, 
where Paul says: ‘‘In our one body we have a 
number of members, and the members have not all 
the same function; so too, for all our numbers we 
form one body in Christ, and we are severally 
members one of another. Our talents differ with 
the grace that is given us; if the talent is that of 
prophecy, let us employ it in proportion to our 
faith; if it is practical service let us mind our 
service: the teacher must mind his teaching, the 
speaker his words of counsel; the contributor must 
be liberal, the superintendent must be in earnest, 
the sick visitor must be cheerful.’’ (Moffatt.) 


In these words there is at least the germ of the 
committee idea, and a place suggested for every 


194 THE DISCIPLES 


one. <A thoroughly well-organized and well-man- 
aged church would assign, or at least suggest 
to every one who becomes a member some specific 
service he may render. As in a healthy body there 
seems to be use for even the slightest nerve or cell, 
so is it in the Church which is the body of Christ. 
This would conserve and call out all the pos- 
sible energy of the Church. The leakage of power 
would cease. As conditions are now, it is likely 
that no organization known suffers such leakage 
of power or has so many units unused as the 
Church of Jesus Christ. Consecrated personality 
is the strongest spiritual dynamic on earth. What 
would not be possible to a body of religious people 
were all its personalities consecrated, properly 
placed, duly awakened and completely energized 
by the Spirit of God? Certainly it could perform 
feats of faith that would astound the world. 


Church Organizations Not Mere Mechanics 
The Church of Christ is an organization but it is 
far from being merely a machine. Dynamics and 
mechanics are essential to each other. A real 
church is the social organ of the Holy Spirit. The 
life of God flows out through it to purify and re- 
deem the world. This makes even organization 
spiritual. It brings people together with one pur- 
pose and heart and that cultivates in them the 
spiritual life. Church members must agree; they 


How THE CHURCHES WORK 195 


must work together; they must love one another 
or organization is an impossibility. It comes to 
pass therefore that the Church is organized love 
and that good organization is one of the most im- 
portant essentials of spirituality. 


CHAPTER XIII 


HOW THE CHURCHES WORK TOGETHER 


T. PAUL’S description of the Corinthian 
Church was~-‘‘workers together with God.”’ 
This is the theme of this chapter. Without co- 
operation there can be no brotherhood, either in 
organization or in feeling, and there is no other 
way to make a permanent and effective impression 
upon the country or the world. Isolation means 
feebleness, narrow vision and sectarianism. 


Conditions of Co-operation 

Co-operation can only be realized through some 
kind of representative popular central organiza- 
tion which will afford opportunity to all members 
to help determine the work, objects and methods 
of the body. The unifying forces are many but 
none of them ean be entirely satisfactory in creat- 
ing the sentiments of brotherhood or in carrying 
on the work of brotherhood unless the members 
meet face to face and talk and pray and vote to- 
eether. 

It is well to consider the principles to be ob- 
served in forming and conducting organizations, 
through which the churches of Christ may co-oper- 
ate. 

1. Such organizations must not be self-determin- 
ing. They are not like worldly conventions which 


196 


How THE CHURCHES WorK TOGETHER 197 


get together and make platforms for the people. 
They are not overhead, authoritative bodies. They 
are not super-churehes. They are creations of the 
local churches and subject to their control. The 
democracy and supremacy of the ‘‘local echureh’’ 
must never be surrendered or impaired. 

2. The convention and the missionary society 
are in no sense invested with governing power 
over the churches. They can not ‘‘hand down’’ 
to the churches. They must receive from them. 
Their utterances are advisory. But they should 
receive due consideration and sincere treatment, 
otherwise there can be no co-operation. 

3. Conventions must not undertake to legislate 
as to the doctrine or faith of the Church. That is 
settled for all time and for all disciples by the 
New Testament. 

4. The organizations and conventions through 
which the churches co-operate must be efficient. 
Their work must be conducted without waste and 
faithfully as to the intent and plans of the churches. 

5. Co-operative organizations should be kept 
close to the people and as free from technicality 
as possible. This cannot be done entirely, for for- 
eign missionary work especially requires a degree 
of technical training and understanding. 


Co-operative Agencies of the Disciples 


The churches have conventions and organized 
societies through which they co-operate. An im- 


198 THE DISCIPLES 


portant distinction should be noticed here. There 
is a difference between the conventions and the 
missionary societies. The former have no corporate 
legal existence while the latter are chartered and 
have legal standing and responsibility. 


1. The chief organization of the Disciples is the 
International Convention of Disciples of Christ. 
It gathers and dissolves each year but it is the 
great popular body in which every Disciple may 
have voice and its leadership is generally trusted. 
Its power lies exactly in the fact that vt 1s not an 
authority but an influence. Not being technically 
nor legally corporate it is more quickly responsive 
to the demands of the churches and it is therefore 
the greatest instrument of freedom and of progress 
the churches have at their command. 


From the constitution, as adopted at the Kansas 
City Convention in 1917, the following sections are 
given, showing the purposes of the International 
Convention of Disciples of Christ and the or- 
ganization by which it operates for the aceomplish- 
ment of these purposes. 


The object of this Convention shall be to promote co- 
operation, economy and efficiency among the various gen- 
eral agencies of the brotherhood; to afford facilities for 
auditing their accounts; to obtain a substantial repre- 
sentation of the membership of Churches of Christ in an 
annual assembly which shall consider all reports sub- 
mitted to it and be advisory to our missionary, educa- 
tional and philanthropic interests; and in all legitimate 


How THE CHURCHES WorRK TOGETHER 199 


ways to promote a closer fellowship in the Kingdom of 
God. 

The Annual Assembly shall be composed of all mem- 
bers of Churches of Christ who shall attend and enroll, 
whether appointed by congregations or representing them- 
selves only. All members of Churches of Christ shall be 
entitled to admission to all public sessions of the Conven- 
tion. 

The officers shall be a president, three vice-presidents, 
a recording secretary, a general secretary, and a treas- 
urer, whose duties shall be those usually appertaining to 
such offices, including the sole official charge of all pub- 
lie sessions of the Convention. No officer save the gen- 
eral secretary shall be elected to succeed himself. 

Between annual meetings the management shall be 
vested in an executive committee of fifteen members, 
the terms of five of whom shall expire each year. 
Through sub-committes or otherwise, it shall be the duty 
of the executive committee to act in an auditing and 
advisory capacity with the various missionary, educa- 
tional and benevolent boards, and to co-operate with 
such boards in preparing the programs and all arrange- 
ments for the holding of the next annual assembly, and 
in presenting thereto, for approval and recommendation 
to the churches, a proposed missionary, educational and 
benevolent estimate and apportionment for the succeed- 
ing year and a proposed time and place for holding the 
ensuing annual assembly. 

Throughout the annual assembly there shall sit from 
day to day, with power to appoint sub-committees, a 
committee on recommendations, which shall receive such 
reports of the various general agencies as may be sub- 
mitted to it; shall analyze and scrutinize such reports; 
shall make such recommendations to said boards as it 
deems wise; and shall submit the same to the Convention. 


200 THE DISCIPLES 


To such committee all resolutions and other business shall 
be referred without debate. It shall report at each daily 
business session of the Convention; and each item of 
business so reported shall be approved or disapproved, or 
recommended to it by the Convention to be revised and 
again reported. The committee on recommendations 
shall be annually constituted of members of Churches of 
Christ who shall possess good business qualifications and 
be actively interested in the various agencies of the 
brotherhood, but not in their employ. It shall be com- 
posed of those chosen by the several State or Provincial 
Missionary Societies or Conventions, or by District So- 
cieties or Conventions where one or more States or Prov- 
inces may be affiliated in such District organizations, as 
follows: 

(a) One member for each State, Province or District 
regardless of the number of members of Churches of 
Christ within such territory. 

(b) One additional, and preferably lay member, for 
each twenty-five thousand or final major fraction thereof 
of church membership above the first thirteen thousand 
within such territory. 

The members of the executive committee shall also be 
ex-officio members of the committee on recommendations, 
which may fill vacancies in its own membership. 

On its application being presented to the Convention 
and the same being favorably reported by the committee 
on recommendations and approved by a two-thirds vote 
of the Convention, any general brotherhood missionary, 
educational or philanthropic organization may become a 
co-operating organization under the provisions of the Con- 
stitution, provided it will agree to insert in its Constitu- 
tion and By-Laws a provision to submit its reports to the 
Convention, and to hold its books, accounts and all its 
records open to the inspection of the committee on rec- 


How THE CHURCHES WorK TOGETHER 201 


ommendations or to the Executive Committee of the Con- 
vention between annual meetings of the Convention when- 
ever such inspection is desired either by the Convention or 
by either of these Committees. The Convention will in 
every way within its power under its Constitution aid in 
promoting the work of its co-operating organizations. Co- 
operation between the Convention and a co-operating or- 
ganization may be terminated at the expiration of one 
year after written notice of a desire to terminate such ¢o- 
operation shall have been given by one or the other. 

There is a fine blending of democracy and effi- 
ciency in the Convention organization. Provision 
is made in its Constitution for those churches 
which wish to select and send delegates to do so, 
while at the same time provision is made for par- 
ticipation in the Convention of those who attend 
without having been sent by their local churches. 
In the business sessions of the Convention there is 
the utmost freedom of discussion, while at the same 
time the Constitution requires that all resolutions, 
reports and other matters of business must be pre: 
sented to the committee on recommendations and 
acted on by it before it can be voted on by the Con- 
vention itself. This blending of democracy and 
efficiency is in keeping with the entire history of 
the Disciples of Christ and is also in harmony with 
the principles of the New Testament. 

Practically all the States in the Union also have 
annual conventions to which delegates are sent to 
discuss and advise on the church’s aims and needs. 
Some States are divided into districts with officers 


202 THE DISCIPLES 


and conventions. There is no doubt that the coun- 
try would be very thoroughly covered by preaching 
and teaching if the churches held themselves 
strictly to co-operation through these organizations 
as planned. 


2. The United Christian Missionary Society is 
the legal, corporate body through which most of 
the churches co-operate in their general missionary, 
and philanthropic work. This organization, as its 
name indicates, is the resultant of the union of 
several different missionary societies which oper- 
ated independently in the past. These were the 
American Christian Missionary Society, the For- 
eign Christian Missionary Society, the Christian 
Woman’s Board of Missions, the National Benevo- 
lent Association, the Board of Ministerial Relief 
and the Board of Church Extension. Sunday 
school and Christian Endeavor interests are in- 
cluded in the work of the United Christian Mis- 
sionary Society as they were formerly under the 
American Christian Missionary Society. 

Owing to legal technicalities each of the old so- 
cieties is kept intact. Property has been acquired 
by bequest and otherwise and this must be con- 
served according to the terms of gift and accept- 
anee. This has been carefully and conscientiously 
done but the old boards do little beyond handling 
these perpetual funds. In its corporate capacity 
the United Christian Missionary Society is entirely 


How THE CHURCHES WorK TOGETHER 203 


independent of the International Convention of 
Disciples of Christ, though according to its consti- 
tution it may meet annually as a part of that body. 


Its work has been distributed into departments 
as follows: Foreign Missions, Home Missions, Be- 
nevolenece, Chureh Erection, Ministry, Religious 
Education, Missionary Edueation, Promotion and 
Service. Each department has a chairman and 
staff and conducts its own work, but co-ordinates 
it with all the others through an officers’ council 
and by monthly reports to the executive committee. 


The Foreign Department has missionaries in 
India, China, Africa, Tibet, Japan, South Amer- 
ica, Mexico, Porto Rico, Jamaica and in the Philip- 
pines. The officers of the Foreign Department 
select the foreign missionaries and recommend 
them to the executive committee which gives them 
their commissions. The College of Missions, a 
school for graduate work and the training of mis- 
sionaries located at Indianapolis, Ind., is assigned 
to this department but is managed by its own 
board of trustees. This school is highly esteemed 
by the Disciples and has attracted favorable atten- 
tion from other religious bodies. 

The Department of Home Missions supports 
pastors and teachers and Sunday school superin- 
tendents as needed for missions, according to its 
ability. It has Bible chairs at the State Universi- 
ties of Michigan, Kansas, Texas and Virginia. It 


204 THE DISCIPLES 


conducts schools at Hazel Green and Morehead, 
Kentucky, and at Livingston, Tennessee. It main- 
tains Christian work among European, Mexican 
and Oriental immigrants, as well as among the 
North American Indians, and the Negroes. The 
forms of work are pastoral, educational, and social, 
with the great objective of Christianization. 

The Department of Benevolence conducts a hos- 
pital at Valparaiso, Ind., and has homes for or- 
phans, half-orphans, and other needy children at 
St. Louis, Cleveland, Dallas, Atlanta, Denver and 
Omaha, taking care of a total of more than 500 
children annually. Homes for the aged are located 
at East Aurora, N. Y.; Jacksonville, Florida; 
Jacksonville, Illinois; Walla Walla, Washington ; 
Long Beach, California; Dallas, Texas; and Ma- 
rion, Indiana. 

The Department of Church Erection has assisted 
in building 2,182 congregations and made loans 
totaling more than $5,000,000 during 25 years of 
operation. 

The Department. of the Ministry continues the 
work of the Board of Ministerial Relief. It aids 
ministers and the wives of deceased ministers and 
missionaries when disabled by age or affliction. It 
has devised a pension system in which a large 
number of ministers and missionaries have en- 
rolled. The relief is still dependent in a large 
measure on free will offerings of the churches. 


How tHE CHURCHES WorRK TOGETHER 205 


The Department of Religious Education has set 
itself the task of making ‘‘the Bible an open book 
among the people. It promotes the nurture and 
training of children, youths and adults in Chris- 
tian knowledge and life.’’ The agencies of its 
service are the Bible school and the Christian En- 
deavor Society. It holds institutes, rallies and 
schools of methods in various parts of the country. 
About 30 specially trained men and women are 
employed in this’ branch of the service. 


The Departments of Missionary Education, and 
Promotion and Service have to do with methods 
and need not here be analyzed. 


The news and educational organs of the Society 
are World Call and the King’s Builders. 

The growth and influence of the United Chris- 
tian Missionary Society have been unusual. The 
churches have called men and women distinguished 
for ability, consecration and service to direct it 
and they have managed the work in such a satis- 
factory way that already nearly three millions of 
dollars are being given annually to be spent by 
the Society for the ends and programs adopted by 
them at their annual meetings. There has been a 
perpetual and rapid increase in funds and in vol- 
unteers for the mission fields. The organization is 
not cast iron, but is mobile and adaptable, and as 
funds increase more fields will be occupied and 
every challenge of our volatile and changeful civ- 


206 THE DISCIPLES 


ilization will be wisely dealt with under the lead- 
ership of this great missionary organization. We 
may confidently expect that, within a short period, 
judging the future by the past, the churches will 
be entrusting this society with $10,000,000 or $20,- 
000,000, to be expended for the advance of the 
Kingdom of Christ. 

The officers of the society are a president, two 
vice-presidents, a recorder, a treasurer, and a num- 
ber of secretaries varying according to the demands 
of the work. These officers are elected annually by 
the society at its sessions which are held in con- 
nection with the International Convention of Dis- 
eiples of Christ. 


The society is under the direction of a board of 
managers, composed of sixty men and sixty wom- 
en, one-third of whom are elected annually on the 
nomination of a committee representing all the 
state, provincial and regional conventions in the 
United States and Canada. An executive commit- 
tee selected annually by the board of managers 
out of its own membership, consisting of ten men 
and ten women meets monthly to act on matters 
submitted to it by the officers. This committee re- 
ports to the board of managers, which reports 
annually to the Convention. 

The officers of the Society are not members of 
the board of managers and have no vote in its 
sessions nor in the executive committee. 


How THE CHuRCHES WorK TOGETHER 207 


Most of the states and provinces of Canada have 
incorporated missionary societies which are, gen- 
erally speaking, the same in character, aim and 
method as those of the Home Missions Department 
of the United Christian Missionary Society. Most 
of them antedate this society. The relation between 
the United Christian Missionary Society and the 
State societies is voluntary on the part of all, -but 
there is generally hearty co-operation. 

3. The Board of Education of the Disciples of 
Christ is the agency through which the churches 
work co-operatively for their educational interests. 
Its headquarters are in Indianapolis. The work 
of the board is guided by 60 directors. The presi- 
dents of the affiliated colleges are ex-officio members 
of the directorate. The remaining directors are 
chosen from the churches at large. The Board of 
Edueation has five departments of work with a 
secretary at the head of each. The departments 
are: General; Promotional; State University; Vo- 
cational Guidance; and Endowments. All the col- 
leges co-operating through this board must be un- 
der the auspices of the Disciples of Christ. Each 
must be governed by its own board of trustees, and 
must not be under the immediate control of a 
missionary society. Its books must be audited 
separately and reports made annually to the 
ehurches. This is usually done at the International 
Convention of Disciples of Christ. At present 


208 THE DISCIPLES 


twenty-six institutions of higher learning hold 
membership on this board. 


The board was organized in 1914, yet in the short 
time that has elapsed since, it has aroused a new 
enthusiasm for education among the Disciples. 
Largely by its influence and suggestions the col- 
leges have been put on better financial basis, the 
standard of scholarship raised, and the institutions 
have gained more confidence and attention from 
the Brotherhood at large. It is rapidly recovering 
some of our lost educational ideals and giving our 
colleges better standing all around. Not the 
least of its services is the promotion of co-operation 
among the colleges themselves. 


4. The Disciples have always championed every 
kind of reform that would improve society and 
hence they have been among the most active 
workers in the eause of temperance and related is- 
sues. They approve this work through the Board of 
Temperance and Social Welfare whose headquar- 
ters are in Indianapolis, Indiana. This is strictly a 
board and its duties are defined in its name. It 
reports to the International Convention and its 
officers are nominated and approved in the con- 
vention. 

dD. Desiring to emphasize anew and in a more 
tangible and practical way the plea for Christian 
Union, which was the original aim of the Disciples, 
delegates of the Convention at Topeka, Kansas, 


How THE CHURCHES WorK TOGETHER 209 


in 1910, took action which resulted in the setting 
up of the Association for the Promotion of Chris- 
tian Unity. 

The main purposes of the Association for the 
Promotion of Christian Unity are to write and dis- 
tribute literature on Christian Union among the 
Disciples and other religious bodies, to foster 
prayer for unity and to hold Christian union con- 
ferences in important centers. It is incorporated 
and has twenty-five directors. Its headquarters 
are in Baltimore. It reports annually to the Inter- 
national Convention of Disciples of Christ and its 
officers and directors are elected by that body. 
It publishes The Christian Union Quarterly and 
also a number of books and tracts on Christian 
Union. 


6. There are 28 colleges in the Brotherhood. Not 
all of these are standard senior colleges. Some of 
them are junior colleges and some are schools of 
religion founded at State university centers. The 
colleges are not under complete or direct control 
of the churches, yet they are considered schools of 
the Disciples and are patronized as such. In a 
few instances the conventions of the States in 
which they exist elect some of the trustees of the 
schools. A few are individual enterprises, but in 
line with the doctrines commonly taught by the 
churches. Most of these colleges co-operate with 
each other in the interest of their own betterment 


210 THE DISCIPLES 


through the Board of Education. Some do not, 
however, preferring to remain entirely inde- 
pendent and to make their contribution to the 
Brotherhood by that method. 

The Disciples are a free people and every one 
may work as he wishes and no one will try to hin- 
der. But the constraint of wisdom is being felt 
more each year and it is becoming apparent that 
only by formal and expressed co-operation can 
churches and schools do their best work. On this 
there should be no divisions. Those churches 
which co-operate will find themselves able to go 
into all the world; while those which prefer not to 
co-operate will always have a local character and 
influence. 


7 


(7. Without the printing press and religious 
newspapers, co-operative work on any large or 
satisfactory scale would be impossible. The agen- 
cies which build a brotherhood are the local chureh, 
the printing press, the college and the missionary 
society. Not the least of these is the printing press. 


The Christian Board of Publication, St. Louis, 
Mo., is the property of the Brotherhood. Its board 
of trustees is a self-perpetuating body. Its charter 
binds them to conduct its affairs in the interest of 
the Disciples of Christ. Literature is issued for 
all the grades of the most thoroughly organized 
Sunday school. These publications have been kept 
abreast the best methods of work and the highest 


How THE CHURCHES WorK TOGETHER 211 


ideals of religious education. Papers suitable for 
all ages from the little child to the adult come from 
the presses of the Christian Board of Publication. 
The house also publishes The Christian-Evangelist 
which is a general religious, family and church 
paper. The range of literature issued includes 
general books, as well as those pertaining especially 
to the Church, but it specializes in religious books, 
tracts and church supplies as part of its service to 
the Brotherhood. 


The Christian Board of Publication was the gift 
of Mr. R. A. Long to the Disciples in memory of 
his mother. It has developed very rapidly. It 
owns a valuable property in the business section 
of the city of St. Louis. The assets at this time 
(1923) exceed $600,000. Dividends of nearly $50,- 
000 have been paid to our missionary organiza- 
tions. All the earnings of this board must be spent 
for church purposes. No private party draws any 
of its dividends. The trustees serve without finan- 
cial compensation. 


The Standard Publishing Company, Cincinnati, 
Ohio, is also a house of the Disciples. It publishes 
much literature and many books for the Disciples 
of Christ and for other groups. Many Sunday 
school papers, lesson quarterlies and other chureh 
helps issue from its presses. They publish a series 
of Sunday school papers for the same classes of 
readers as those served by the literature of the 


212 THE DISCIPLES 


Christian Board of Publication. Their chief pub- 
lication is the Christian Standard, a weekly re- 
gious journal. The company is owned and man- 
aged privately. 

In addition to these journals there are several 
able weeklies and monthlies published as State 
papers and about thirty mforming and attractive 
parish papers. 

It requires high spiritual development and the 
constant exercise of faith in one another to main- 
tain satisfactory co-operation. The Disciples are 
learning this divine art rapidly. But it must ever 
be kept in mind that the motive power is the Holy 
Spirit, the leader Jesus Christ, the guide the New 
Testament, and the goal the service of God and 
man. The religion of Christ is a way of life 
and our organizations will be safe and efficient 
when we hold them strictly as mere instruments of 
work, and practice the love of God and of one 
another, and follow Jesus Christ. 


CHAPTER XIV 
HOW THE CHURCHES WORK WITH OTHERS 


T has been asked, ‘‘If Not a United Chureh— 

What?’’* The question is pertinent but should 
be amended to read, ‘‘Until a United Church— 
What?’’ The answer is ‘‘co-operation.’’ In fact, 
we may regard co-operation as Christian union mn 
action—or Christian union in the practical affairs 
of the Kingdom. It is the saving grace in the pres- 
ent state of division and confusion that we can 
work together in many, yea, in most of the im- 
portant movements of the times. Co-operation 
will, we believe, eventually lead into Christian 
union. 


Need for Christian Co-operation Urgent 


1. The churches are always in imminent danger 
of the disgrace of strife and failure so long as Chris- 
tendom is divided. Christ prayed for Christian 
unity, Paul argued for it, the world’s needs require 
it and the hearts of Christian people are hungering 
for it. 

2. Christian co-operation is demanded by the 
hugeness of the challenge hurled at the Church to- 
day by the wrecked condition of civilization and 
by the master evils that prey upon mankind. No 





*Peter Ainslie. 
213 


214 THE DISCIPLES 


single group of churchmen is able to cope with 
the drug evil, with the ‘‘ White Slave Traffic,’’ with 
the materialistic aims and atheistic purposes of evil 
men and women in different parts of the world, 
with the paganism of modern society, the anar- 
chism seeking the disintegration of civilization 
from within, and much less with the vast masses 
of the nations of the world, that have as yet been 
scarcely touched by the influence of the gospel. 
There are many theological differences between the 
churches but only a few ethical and religious ones. 
Churches do not differ in their desire to see the 
world filled with good works and nothing should 
hinder their hearty co-operation toward that end. 


3. The enemies of Christ and Christianity are 
foes of all the churches and there is no way to 
meet them except with solid front. During 
the World War the great nations formed an alli- 
ance in order to fight the common enemy. Each 
nation kept its individuality and _ sovereignty 
within its own control. But they found a way of 
co-operation. The representatives of all the allied 
countries worked together, whether generals, or 
physicians, or nurses, or public teachers, to make 
democracy safe for the world. The churches are 
engaged in a larger conflict than that of the World 
War. Their battle field is flung over wider areas, 
it is age-long in duration and the issues of it are 
more momentous than we ean imagine. This ar- 


How CHURCHES WorK WitTH OTHERS 215 


gues again that we must be workers together with 
God. 

4. Wherever there is a seam of division in the 
Church there is leakage of power. It costs more 
in money, it requires more men and more effort to 
work separately than to work together. 

5. The Master himself recognized the principle 
of the oneness of his Church when he said, ‘‘ Other 
sheep have I which are not of this fold; these also 
must I bring that there may be one shepherd and 
one fold.’’ Christ has a people in all the churches. 
Well for them if they find one another and join 
hands in good works and become one in vision and 
in heart. 

6. The churches will enrich their lives by co- 
operative endeavor. Each will get the best that 
inheres in all and will be compelled by the selec- 
tive processes of actual experiences to throw off 
faults, overcome weaknesses and to put forward 
their best in the battle with evil. Churches, like 
individuals, are perfected by fellowship. (See 
Chapter IT.) 


Principles of Co-Operation 


1. These principles are to be found in written 
form in the New Testament. They are precepts, 
teachings, and precedents which show what is good, 
and what will contribute to the growth and estab- 
lishment of the kingdom of God in the world. It 
is self-evident that we may and should co-operate 


216 THE DISCIPLES 


with all Christ’s followers in doing what the New 
Testament teaches as good works. 


2. Co-operative enterprises must not require us 
to ignore our consciences or bear false witness to 
the beliefs or purposes of our own church. It 
must not imply the suppression of anything ele- 
mental in loyalty to Christ. 

A minister was asked to attend a meeting and 
open with prayer. It was hinted to him that the 
gathering would be one of mixed beliefs—and that 
some would take it better if he did not use the 
name of Christ. Rightly the minister refused to 
adopt such a course. He honored both the assem- 
bly and himself by such a refusal. But if no touch 
of restraint had been placed upon his lips he could 
have gone and offered the prayer without hurtful 
compromise. A very good rule in the question of 
co-operation 1s to refuse to join hands with any 
cause that requires the suppression, the avorvdance 
of, or apology for the use of the Name of Jesus. 

3. When Christian co-operation is to be prac- 
ticed, all the groups joining should really be 
ehureches. Spiritualist groups, theosophical soci- 
eties, new thought associations, and clubs and 
lodges have no right to call themselves churches. 
We say this without the spirit of unkind criticism, 
for we gladly recognize the fact that most of these 
orders do much good. But merely doing good does 


How CHuRCHES WorK WITH OTHERS 217 


not make a Church nor do many such societies 
combined constitute a Chureh group. | 


‘“Chureh”’ is strictly a Christian term. Rightly 
it belongs only to those who openly crown Christ 
as Lord and practice his words as the inspiration 
and rule of hfe. The Church is a community of 
free individuals joined by their own unconstrained 
choice and deed in following Jesus Christ accord- 
ing to his teachings and revelation. Lodges, cults, 
labor organizations and ethical societies are not 
churches though they may be friends of the 
Chureh. If the churches join in movement with 
these groups which they ought to do whenever pos- 
sible, it should be because they are honored fellow- 
men who are striving to serve humanity and thus 
are helping to make the world better and not be- 
cause they are churches. It is always right to do 
good. 


4. The spirit of Christ is to be obeyed. We 
should make our work and our affiliations as wide 
as the will of Christ. What his will about our 
relationship to others is can be found in his re- 
corded words. He did not manage his charity and 
the wideness of his love so that it would seem to 
endorse those who were walking in selfish ways. 
He told the woman of Samaria pleinly that she and 
her people were in the wrong in their contentions 
about the place of worship. Yet he talked with 
her, had the wonderful and great fellowship of the 


218 THE DISCIPLES 


cup of cold water with her, and she became enthu- 
siastic about his person, his office and his power. 


Causes in Which the Churches May Co-operate 


Those who possess the spirit of Christ will have 
their minds clarified and their hearts delivered 
from sectarianism and they will be able to join in 
all kinds of good works with other church people. 

1. There is a very wide range of movements for 
Christian co-operation. They include local eru- 
sades for community betterment; nation-wide cam- 
paigns for the uplift of the people; local and world 
‘‘drives’’ for the relief of sufferers from accident, 
drought, oppression or persecution; efforts to 
Christianize industry; enterprises for better 
schools and better homes; and endeavors to enforce 
laws in the community and in the nation at large. 
The establishment of permanent world-wide peace 
is the greatest cause of all and probably includes 
all the rest. A Church which holds back from 
fighting in the war against war is the most faith- 
less slacker in the world today. 

2. There must also be hearty co-operation in gen- 
eral evangelistic and religious missions in which 
all the churches combine under the leadership of 
ministers suitable by consecration and ability to 
make the gospel appeal to sinners and present the 
gospel teaching to saints. This enables the Chris- 
tians of a given area to mobilize their whole moral 
and spiritual influence for the conversion of a sin- 


How CuHurcHES WorkK WITH OtTHers 219 


ning and sinful world and for the edification of the 
people in truth and righteousness. Such move- 
ments enable each group to do its own work better 
in the end. They give the Church an influence 
and standing in the community it could get in no 
other way and put the whole Christian dynamic 
into each organization. 


Organizations Through Which Churches May 
Co-operate 

These organizations, for the most part, arose out 
of Christian experience and out of the effort to find 
a way to help the churches work together in the 
name of Jesus Christ. They may be classed as 
extra-church, wntra-church and inter-church. They 
all grew out of Christian influence and exist by 
the spiritual life it generates; but only the intra- 
church and wter-church societies consult churches 
as such in their work. They are all, however, allies 
of the Church. 


1. Consider Extra-Church Organizations 


Among these we think first of the Young Men’s 
and the Young Women’s Christian Associations. 
These are not directly under the control of the 
churches, but usually they are composed of church 
members. They are Christian associations as their 
name indicates. They give very much attention 
to the surroundings and moral welfare of the 
young men and women in the cities. Often they 


220 THE DISCIPLES 


help them to get a start in business. One of the 
deepest motives in them may be read in a saying 
of Sir George Williams, the founder. He said that 
‘‘the first twenty-four hours of a young man’s life 
in London usually settled his eternity in heaven 
or hell.’’ 


One of the noblest and best of the extra-church 
organizations is the Woman’s Christian Temper- 
ance Union. It may be regarded as the romance of 
reform by Christian women. It stands for per- 
sonal purity in men and women and was prac- 
tically the pioneer in securing systematic and com- 
petent scientific instruction in the public schools, 
showing the evil effects of narcotics on the human 
system. It has also pleaded for the same standard 
of life for men and women and for clean men in 
office and all places of public leadership. It stands 
for a spiritual society. No badge is more honor- 
able and none more honored than the White Rib- 
bon. The organization is still greatly needed. It 
stands for the right kind of women’s rights. It 
must help to interpret the new freedom of women 
and save them from ruin by ultra-feminist views. 

Under the same head we should name the Gid- 
eons, the Pocket Testament League and the Amer- 
ican Bible Society. The aim of all of these is to 
promote the reading of God’s word. 


The Anti-Saloon League is also an extra-chureh 


How CHURCHES WorK WITH OTHERS 221 


organization, though it has been a most effective 
channel through which the churches have co-oper- 
ated for the destruction of the liquor traffic. 
Through this organization the churches put their 
high social and moral principles and ideals into 
the constitution of the United States in the form 
of the 18th Amendment. 


The Red Cross was started by a churchman but 
we are not aware that it ever claimed to be religious 
—certainly it is: not ecclesiastical. Its work is 
humane and its objects Christian. They were put 
into the human heart by the sacrificial glow of the 
eross. The Red Cross does the work of the Master 
without acknowledging his name. 


2. Intra-Church Organizations 


The Sunday school movement is to be classed as 
mtra-church. Its programs and conventions are 
co-operative. The local schools themselves are not 
component parts of the Sunday school organiza- 
tion. A central committee representing all the 
churches makes the programs of study and ar- 
ranges the lessons to be studied. The courses are 
now planned by the ablest Sunday school leaders 
and Bible students in the land. Skilled educators 
whose hearts have been touched by God, come to- 
gether to work out curricula for the Bible schools. 
The lessons are carefully graded and avoid the 
mere lecture and essay method by putting the stu- 
dent to the study of the Bible itself. A teacher 


222 THE DISCIPLES 


training course has been prepared and in nearly 
every city there is a central school of methods, 
which is worthy as a scheme of co-operation and 
practical Christian unity. 


The Young People’s Society of Christian En- 
deavor is intra-church. It commands some 4,000,- 
000 of people but they are distributed through 
various churches in local societies. The churches 
as such have no voice in the management of this 
society. Possibly no movement in the annals of 
Christianity has had a better influence over young 
people. It should be noted that nearly all the 
great moral reforms in government and life in 
recent years coincide with the time when those who 
had been trained from childhood in the Young 
People’s Society of Christian Endeavor became old 
enough to work and to vote as citizens of the State. 
This society has mitigated sectarian animosities 
and put a very much needed element of brightness 
and joy into religion. 

There is a distinctive Christian Endeavor cul- 
ture and it is of the most winsome kind. Christian 
Endeavor conventions have been amongst the 
largest gatherings of modern times and have stim- 
ulated all the churches to better work and better 
living. These conventions have contributed much 
to the unity of the nation and to the breaking down 
of racial prejudices. The Young People’s Senior 
Endeavor has been a training school in visions 


How CuHurcHES WorkK WITH OTHERS 223 


and tasks. The pledge presents one of the finest 
programs of the personal religious life known to 
us. It is worthy of special study and is as follows: 


Trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for Strength 


I promise Him that I will strive to do whatever He would 
like to have me do; that I will make it the rule of my 
life to pray and to read the Bible every day, and to sup- 
port my own church in every way, especially by attending 
all her regular Sunday and mid-week services, unless -pre~ 
vented by some reason which I can conscientiously give 
to my Savior and that just so far as I know how, through- 
out my whole life, I will endeavor to lead a Christian life. 


As an Active Member 

I promise to be true to all my duties, to be present at 
and to take some part, aside from singing, im every Chris- 
tian Endeavor prayer meeting, unless hindered by some 
reason which I can conscientiously give to my Lord and 
Master. If obliged to be absent from the monthly conse- 
cration meeting of the society, I will, if possible, send at 
least a verse of Scripture to be read in response to my 
name at the roll call, 
3. Inter-Church Organizations 

The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ 
in America is an inter-chureh organization. This 
is the most effective medium of co-operation yet 
devised. between the churches of the different reli- 
gious groups. It is to be carefully distinguished 
from what is known in certain parts of the United 
States, especially in the central west and the north- 
west as ‘‘federated churches’’ in which the differ- 
ent churches of a given community abandon their 
own organizations and their own environing group, 
and merge into one organization, yet strive to 


224 THE DISCIPLES 


hold fast to their peculiar doctrinal views. <A fair 
trial of such movements has shown that they really 
cease to function and that the spiritual aspects of 
and efforts for the conversion of the world are 
generally abandoned for ‘‘social service.’’ The 
Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in 
America ts not a church at all. It is not even an 
organization of churches. It is an inter-chureh or- 
ganization supported by 32 religious bodies in the 
United States. The idea of it was wrought out in 
a conference held in Carnegie Hall in 1905. The 
national assemblies of Churches participating in 
it adopted the suggested organization 1906-1908, 
and it was ratified by the Council at its meeting in 
Philadelphia, December 2-8, 1908. <A thorough 
understanding of it may be gathered from the con- 
stitution, which is in full as follows: 


Preamble 


Whereas, In the providence of God, the time has come 
when it seems fitting more fully to manifest the essential 
oneness of the Christian Churches of America in Jesus 
Christ as their Divine Lord and Saviour, and to promote 
the spirit of fellowship, service, and co-operation among 
them, the delegates to the Interchurch Conference on 
Federation, assembled in New York City, do hereby ree- 
ommend the following Plan of Federation for their ap- 
proval: 


Plan of Federation 


For the prosecution of work that can be better done 
in union than in separation a Council is hereby estab- 


How CuHurcHES Work WITH OTHERS 225 


lished whose name shall be the Federal Council of the 
Churches of Christ in America. 

The object of this Federal Council shall be: 

I. To express the fellowship and catholic unity of the 
Christian Church. 

II. To bring the Christian bodies of America into 
united service for Christ and the world. 

III. To encourage devotional fellowship and mutual 
counsel concerning the spiritual life and religious aetivi- 
ties of the churches. 

IV. To secure a larger combined influence for the 
Churches of Christ in all matters affecting the moral and 
social condition of the people, so as to promote the ap- 
plication of the law of Christ in every relation of human 
life. 

V. To assist in the organization of local branches of 
the Federal Council to promote its aims in their com- 
munities. 

This Federal Council shall have no authority over the 
constituent bodies adhering to it; but its province shall 
be limited to the expression of its counsel and the recom- 
mending of a course of action in matters of common in- 
terest to the churches, local councils, and individual 
Christians. 

It has no authority to draw up a common creed or 
form of government or of worship, or in any way to limit 
the full autonomy of the Christian bodies adhering to it. 


The Disciples in Convention at Omaha in 1902 
voted, after a stormy debate, to enter this move- 
ment, which, however, did not come into active 
existence until 1908, as noted above. The fears 
entertained by those who opposed it, that it would 
be a harmful alliance, have proved unfounded by 


226 THE DISCIPLES 


its fifteen years of service. It may be said with- 
out exaggeration that the Federal Council of the 
Churches of Christ in America has lived up to 
the promise of its preamble and resolution; that 
it has never shown any signs of becoming an 
ecclesiasticism; that it has dealt strictly with 
the interpretations and applications of essential 
Christianity ; and that it has sought by legitimate 
means always to educate public opinion. By thus 
holding itself strictly to the idea of being only a 
voice it has become one of the most influential 
Christian organizations in the world. It has 
brought the Protestant influence to bear on the 
great questions that concern Christianity and so- 
ciety in this country and elsewhere, and has be- 
come a most helpful and intelligent interpreter of 
world questions according to the mind of Christ. 
High officials in our great republic and in other 
nations pay respect to its words, as well as do the 
churches and ministers of Protestantism. At pres- 
ent it is the only institution in the field that makes 
it possible for the churches to be heard by the 
rulers of the world. It is in essence like the idea 
which Thomas Campbell and others organized as 
‘‘™he Christian Association’’ of Western Pennsyl- 
vania, with the difference that it is an association 
of churches instead of individuals. The Federal 
Council of Churches of Christ in America is so 
guarded and controlled that it is practically impos- 


How CHuurRcHES WorkK WITH OTHERS 227 


sible for it ever to become another separate body 
among the already too many separate bodies of 
Protestantism. 


Many Extra-Church Organizations 


There are many other general organizations and 
committees of an extra-church nature which af- 
ford leadership in movements that aim to fulfil 
Christ’s purpose in helping to lift the world out of 
poverty, injustice, sorrow and sin. The great mis- 
sionary societies of the various churches are work- 
ing at this task and they have co-operative con- 
nection with each other in such a way that the 
influence of the various churches makes one general 
impact upon the heathen world. Besides these 
there are about 75 organizations which co-operate 
in some form of Christian service noted in ‘‘The 
Year Book of the Churches,’’ by Dr. E. O. Wat- 
son. It is said that even that is not a complete list. 

It may be seen incidentally that there is not 
nearly as much or as confusing division in the 
churches as is generally supposed. Co-operation is 
at least a form of union. Let us repeat, tt is Chris- 
tian union im action. Most of the churches today 
are eager for this kind of fellowship and they 
gladly lend themselves to any and all movements 
and organizations that will effect ‘‘team work’’ 
among the Christian peoples of a community and 
of the whole world. 

As time goes on and the questions of the Church 


228 THE DISCIPLES 


and of society change, other causes will demand 
other organizations and they will spring up. New 
occasions will teach new duties. The growth and 
progress of the churches will depend upon how 
well they work with each other in dealing with 
these new duties which arise out of the new occa- 
sions. 


CHAPTER XV 


THE SUPREME PURPOSE OF JESUS CHRIST 


N order to fulfil the mission of the Church or 

to live in the right way our own personal 
lives, Christ’s purposes in the world must be dis- 
covered and always kept in view. What that pur- 
pose was and is we are now to study. This is a 
large question and will tax our understanding, in- 
deed our wmagination. For one can never think 
beyond, ean never think up to Jesus Christ. 


W hy Know Christ’s Purpose 


1. We could work without knowing but it would 
be discouraging and we could not work so well. 

We observe this in order to be saved from the 
narrowing and hardening experience of living for 
our church only instead of striving for the all-in- 
elusive cause, the purpose of Jesus. Christ’s pur- 
pose must be known before we ean give our church 
its true mission, direction and speed. For the 
existence of any religious group is meaningless— 
is, in fact, sinful if the mission of the Master is 
not made the mission of the Church. Forever we 
must keep in mind that the Church is His Church, 
his body—the organization through which He 
works in this world. 


229 


230 THE DISCIPLES 


Our wills are ours, we know not how, 
Our wills are ours to make them thine. 


Our church is ours—but it is ours to make it 
Christ’s. If it is not that it is nothing. 

2. It is necessary to know the purpose of Christ 
in the world in order to give the Church the in- 
spiration it needs. We have all heard of the stone- 
cutter whose only duty was to carve a flower or 
portion of a flower on a rock, he had heard was to 
be placed in a great building. But he had no joy 
in his work and considered it drudgery until he 
saw the completed plan—and how faithful fulfil- 
ment of his part was helping to beautify the whole 
magnificent structure. He became enthusiastic 
over his task and sang as his hammer struck fire 
from the rocks. So will it be with the church 
which gets a real vision of its own relation to 
Christ’s mission on earth. When we see the su- 
preme sweep and meaning of Christianity it 
arouses in us new joy and power. And each 
ehurch comes to something because its efforts flow 
into the broadening streams of Christ’s purpose as 
it lengthens and deepens and gathers momentum 
with the ages. 


The Supreme Purpose of Christ on Earth 


With these explanations, what did Jesus propose 
to do in the world? What is the real purpose of 
Christianity? What is the supreme meaning of 
Jesus Christ for time and eternity? 


SUPREME PuRPOSE oF JESUS CHRIST 231 


Jesus Christ gave the keynote to his ministry 
and his work on earth in his first. preaching imme- 
diately following his baptism. His theme was the 
Kingdom of God, his purpose on earth to establish 
that kingdom. (See Matt. 4:12-17.) 


He taught his disciples to pray for the coming 
of the Kingdom: ‘‘Thy Kingdom come’’ (Matt. 
6:10). He explained at the beginning of his teach- 
ing by the seaside that his parables were to illus- 
trate different phases of the Kingdom. (Matt. 138: 
10, 11, 19, 24, 31, 33, 44, 45, 47, 52.) In the Ser- 
mon on the Mount he told men to seek first the 
Kingdom of God and his righteousness. (Matt. 6: 
33.) After he rose from the dead he had forty 
days of wonderful, mystical, intimate association 
with his disciples. It was the splendor of an 
indescribable morning-burst of joy and vision after 
a night of gloom and sorrow. How he lived and 
where he lived is not told; but it was a period of 
emphasis and revelation and the sum and climax 
of his work is written by Luke: ‘‘He showed him- 
self alive after his passion by many proofs, ap- 
pearing unto them by the space of forty days, and 
speaking the things concerning the Kingdom of 
God.’’ (Acts 1:3.) Still that sun-crowned moun- 
tain peak, the Kingdom of God, to lure them on! 


The apostles understood that the establishment 
of the Kingdom was his supreme purpose on earth 


Baye Tue DISCIPLES 


and so they preached the Lordship of Christ as the 
obligation of life (Acts 2:36; 10:36). 

St. Paul says in what is perhaps the highest 
reach of his profound and exalted teachings: 
‘“Then cometh the end, when he shall deliver up 
the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he 
shall have abolished all rule and all authority and 
power. For he must reign, till he hath put all 
enemies under his feet.’’ (1 Cor. 15:24, 25.) 

We have the word of St. John in one of the 
finest passages of the whole New Testament: ‘“‘The 
Kingdom of the world is become the Kingdom of 
our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign for- 
ever and ever.’’ (Rey. 11:15.) The transforma- 
tion of the kingdoms of this world into the King- 
dom of God will be the climax of history. 

Thus the words of Matthew, Luke, Peter, Paul 
and John and of the Master himself show that the 
Master’s supreme purpose in this world was to es- 
tablish, or as it would be more accurate to say, 
regenerate and grow men and nations into the 
Kingdom of God. 


The Ideal of the Kingdom of God 


It was not to be a government after the fashion 
of men, which consists of an organization with 
visible and earthly rulers but it was ‘‘the reign of 
heeven,’’ ‘‘the Realm of God.’’ The latter is the 
phrase Moffatt uses in his recently translated, New 
Testament. Paul says: ‘‘The Kingdom of God is 


SUPREME PURPOSE OF JESUS CHRIST 233 


not meat and drink but righteousness, joy and 
peace in the Holy Spirit.’’ 

The principles of the rule of God will bring 
about a new heaven and a new earth. It is to be a 
reality both here and hereafter. It will bring all 
the satisfactions possible to this earth and all the 
glories to be revealed in the great beyond. It is 
the kingdom of the beatitudes. It is the kingdom 
of the parables—the vital seed, the hidden treas- 
ure, the pearl of great price, the golden net, the 
full grown tree in whose sunny branches birds will 
sing forever. It is an ideal state which ever lures 
on and inspires its subjects; a real state that has 
to do with the practical things of daily life, which 
ever commands its subjects. The Kingdom is: 

1. An inner experience. ‘‘The Kingdom of God 
is within you.’’ Everyone who lets God rule in 
his heart is in the Kingdom because first of all the 
Kingdom is in him. It is the inward truth that 
makes him free. 


2. It is a social condition. The love of God in 
the heart expresses itself socially. The light in 
a man generally finds the way out to make the 
world better. Men and women first experience the 
rule of God in their hearts and then they begin to 
practice it toward their fellowmen and women. 

The Lord’s Prayer is a passionate longing for 
the Kingdom and in that prayer is set forth the 
power, the nature, and the program of the King- 


234 THE DISCIPLES 


dom of God. It will be @ society in which God ts 
reverenced, ‘‘hallowed be Thy name’’; in which his 
will makes of earth a golden heaven, ‘‘Thy will be 
done on earth as it is in heaven’’; in which there 
1s no want, ‘‘Give us our daily bread’’; it will be 
a forgiven world, ‘‘And forgive us our sins’’; a 
reconciled world, ‘‘as we forgive those who sin 
against us’’; a safe world, ‘‘and lead us not into 
temptation but deliver us from evil’’; a world full 
of God, ‘‘For Thine is the Kingdom, the power and 
the glory’’; and it will be an everlasting kingdom, 
-——‘‘forever.’’ 

3. It will spread into a universal realm. It will 
suffuse, reform and transform political conditions 
and practices. ‘‘The kingdoms of this world are 
become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his 
Christ.’’ (Rev. 11:15.) That does not necessarily 
mean that forms of States are to be changed but 
that the spirit which animates them is to be puri- 
fied and enlightened and their objects are to be 
made righteous, spiritual, eternal. The ‘‘King- 
dom of God’’ interpreted as the realm of God, ‘‘the 
rule of God’’ as ‘‘righteousness, joy and peace,”’ 
may be expressed through any form of government. 


But these governments must fear God and seek 
to find his will and not to be the organs of man’s 
ambition and pride. A true government, one that 
expresses the highest purposes, that seeks the good 
of men, must be the organ of God’s will. When 


SUPREME PURPOSE oF JESUS CHRIST 235 


governments become organs of God’s will they will 
be living the life of the kingdom of heaven. In- 
stead of planning and working to create wealth 
alone—as they do now—they will think and work 
to make men clean, upright and happy. They will 
look to the character of men rather than to their 
possessions. 


The work of the churches is to bring all men to 
a knowledge of God, to the acceptance of his will, 
and to the practice of his love; which will be to 
establish his Kingdom. 

4. The Kingdom of God extends to nature. This 
is the meaning of the miracles and helps us to see 
where science performs its service to religion. The 
rejection of miracle is like saying that God made 
the world a machine and abandoned it as soon as 
he made it—that he shut himself out from its 
processes and its powers, that he became enmeshed 
in his own laws. But miracle shows the continued 
presence and intentions of God in his own world. 
His hand is still in the affairs of men and in the 
works of nature. 

Miracles over nature revealed his mastery of 
matter. If nature cannot be interfered with, then 
science and invention are impossible. But science 
is simply a profound enquiry for the secret at the 
root of miracle. 

Miracle is God’s suggestion to man of the things 
which await him when he explores nature. And 


236 THE DISCIPLES 


according to Paul, ‘‘Creation itself shall be deliv- 
ered from the bondage of corruption into the lib- 
erty of the children of God.’’ The miracles of 
healing are perpetual inspirations to physicians 
and abiding consolations to those who have sick- 
ness or deformity. The miracle is the challenge to 
science to search farther, to go deeper, to persevere, 
to believe in God and the wonders of this world. 


How Jesus Builds the Kingdom 

The dynamic which builds the Kingdom is the 
gospel; the body through which it works is the 
Church; the standard of life to be attained is Jesus 
and his teachings; the guide to its practices and 
possibilities the New Testament; the inner inter- 
preter and light, the Holy Spirit and the King is 
God the Father. 

The Kingdom is a family and inheres in the Fa- 
therhood of God and the brotherhood of man. 
Some of the steps in building the Kingdom and 
some of the experiences of its life may be profitably 
enumerated. 

1. Jesus saves his people from their sins. (Matt. 
1:21.) The chief trouble with the world lies here. 
It is our sins that plague us and that bring our 
woes. Saving people from their sins means for- 
giveness—but more—it means that the individual 
will be delivered from the grip, the virus, the 
power, the love of, the delusions of sin. The King- 


SUPREME PURPOSE OF JESUS CHRIST 237 


dom is made up of people who have been saved 
from their sins and are living the Christ life. 

2. He came to seek and to save the lost—to re- 
store the unfortunate and out of the way. His pro- 
gram of immediate work is stated in Luke 4:16-22: 


And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought 
up: and he entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue 
on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And there was 
delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And 
he opened the book, and found the place where it was 
written : 

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 

Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the 
poe hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, 

And recovering of sight to the blind, 


To set at liberty them that are bruised, 
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. 


And he closed the book and gave it back to the at- 
tendant, and sat down: and the eyes of all in the syna- 
gogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto 
them, Today hath this scripture been fulfilled in your 
ears. And all bare him witness, and wondered at the 
words of grace which proceeded out of his mouth: and 
they said, Is not this Joseph’s son? 


Nothing could be more beautiful than this out- 
line of his purpose. It is to take all the world’s 
unfortunates and ill treated, and neglected, and 
broken-hearted, and restore them to places of dig- 
nity, power, and worth among their fellows. He is 
not willing that any should perish or be trampled 
in the mire. He would find the diamond lost in 
earth’s dust heaps and restore it to its place, to 


238 THE DISCIPLES 


flash and burn in the crown of gold about the brow 
of men made magnificent by his grace. He would 
bring back all prodigals. He would salvage the 
wrecks and the wrecked that strew the shores of 
time. 

3. Jesus gives -his people life. (John 10:10.) 
Religion is therefore an inner and vital experi- 
ence. It has been defined as the ‘‘life of God in 
the soul of man.’’ It is far deeper than obedience 
to rules and is made by processes more wonderful 
than the resolution to practice precepts, however 
true they may be. It means much more than to 
strive for ideals however high and fine. Religion 
is a concrete, personal, practical and practicable 
life. The idea is emphasized also in the third chap- 
ter of the gospel of John. Jesus there teaches that 
man must be born again, born from above, born of 
water and the spirit. Under the touch of Christ 
man becomes a new creature—created unto good 
works with the lovely image of God restored in his 
personality and being. Christ came to make the 
most out of men and women; to enrich life in 
everybody and this he has done and is doing. The 
Christian race is a new race in the world. 

This new life is expressed openly in loyalty to 
the Master. We use the words of John Watson 
(Ian Maclaren) to illuminate this idea: 


Loyalty to Jesus was to be the spinal cord to the new 
body, and the sacraments were to be the signs of the new 
spirit. Each was perfect in its simplicity—a beautiful 


SUPREME PURPOSE OF JESUS CHRIST 239 


poem. One was Baptism, where the candidate for God’s 
kingdom disappeared into water and appeared again with 
another name. This meant that he had died to self and had 
risen a new creature, the child of the Divine Will. The 
other was the Lord’s Supper, where Jesus’ disciple eats 
bread and drinks wine in remembrance of His death. 
This meant that he had entered into the spirit of his 
Master and given himself to the service of his Master 
and given himself to the service of the world. Those are 
the only rites of Jesus, those His bonds, and with this 
lowly equipment—two pledges of sacrifice—began the 
kingdom of God. 


3. Jesus builds his Kingdom by giving happiness 
to people. There is an idea that Christ was against 
happiness. We hear it said that he never laughed 
but that he wept. But it is said that he rejoiced. 
The first word of the Sermon on the Mount, which 
is generally understood to be a kind of inaugural 
address in which the heavenly ideals are set forth 
for practice on earth, is ‘‘blessed.’? That means 
happiness in the deepest sense with all its tones, 
and notes and impulses, in all its moods and tenses. 
The music of the heart plays full in the experience 
of the Christian life. All the treasures and beau- 
ties of happiness are in the religion of Christ. 


4. Jesus draws people into the Kingdom by re- 
vealing the beauty and glory of the King. He 
came to reveal God. (John 17:3.) To know God 
is to love him and to seek communion with him. 
Communion with God means participation in the 
life of God. It is to partake of his goodness and of 


240 THE DISCIPLES 


his eternity. This knowledge alone tends to lift 
man up until he uses the whole world aright. It 
delivers him from the quest of those earthly things 
which perish with the using. We never go right 
unless we start right; and if God is the beginning, 
and the end—and we partake of his life—then we 
master time and circumstance and live forever. 

5. Jesus Christ increases the Kingdom by the 
power of the truth working through indwiduals 
who accept rit. Truth-lovers are Kingdom-builders. 
He said to Pilate: ‘‘To this end have I been born 
and to this end am I come into the world, that I 
should bear witness unto the truth. Every one 
that is of the truth heareth my voice.’’ (John 18: 
37.) No one has ever been able to give a satisfac- 
tory definition of the truth because it is abstract 
and not easy to visualize. It is the fundamental, 
eternal principle and power, enlightenment and 
warmth in which personality is created and kept, 
upon which life and conduct are conditioned. It is 
the basis of free-will, and free-endeavor because it 
is the gleam that guides men out of the maze and 
confusions of time; it is the eternal urge which 
drives men on through heat and cold, up-hill and 
down-hill and even through the fiery red gate of 
martyrdom. The Master said: ‘‘Ye shall know 
the truth and the truth shall make you free.’? We 
know Christ’s Kingdom will abide forever for it 
is a Kingdom of truth. 


SUPREME PURPOSE oF JESUS CHRIST 241 


Freedom is the condition of progress. It is the 
privilege of living one’s own life in his own way 
as God gives it to him to see the right. It is the 
privilege of making one’s own choices in Christ 
and by the light of his teachings. 

This establishes the sovereignty of personality, 
makes it one’s duty to think, to act and to speak as 
it seems right to him. Only in this is it possible 
to discover the deeper and higher things of God in 
the exploration of the limitless universe in which 
God has placed us. The only limitations of man’s 
thought and conduct are truth and love as they are 
revealed in Jesus Christ. 

6. Jesus Christ ts establishing the Kingdom by 
preparing man to live forever. He reveals to man 
the life immortal and gives him luring glimpses of 
the Great Beyond. St. Paul says that Christ mani- 
fested God’s purpose toward man, and ‘‘abolished 
death, and brought life and immortality to light 
through the gospel.’’ What a greatness this re- 
veals in man’s essential life and being! As the 
Kingdom which Christ revealed and is establishing 
belongs to all worlds, so the people out of whom 
and for whom this Kingdom ever grows, belongs to 
all worlds. Man is promised resurrection and eter- 
nal life. The Master said ‘‘because I live ye shall 
live also.’? St. Paul declared Christ ‘‘the first 
fruits of them that are asleep.’’ (1 Cor. 15:20.) 
He tells us there is the Spirit working in us al- 


242 THe DISCIPLES 


ready with transforming power and energy. (Ro- 
mans 8:11.) ‘‘Our citizenship is in heaven: 
whence also we wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus 
Christ; who shall fashion anew the body of our 
humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body 
of his glory, according to the working whereby he 
is able even to subject all things unto himself.’’ 
CE ocr 21) 

Christians are the subjects of a hidden and di- 
vine energy which is working out in them the 
miracle of immortality. As in the laboratory of 
nature porcelain may be made from clay, opal from 
soot, diamonds from coal dust and roses from 
earth, dew, sunlight and darkness, so in the labora- 
tory of grace God is making out of our mortal, 
gross, and sometimes deformed bodies of clay, the 
body of the resurrection, the spiritual body of 
strength, beauty, adaptability and _ everlasting 
youth and duration. 

Jesus has also revealed something of the nature 
of the eternal world. He said to his apostles when 
the Great Shadow which awaits us all, fell athwart 
the circle of love and communion in the Upper 
Room : 

Let not your heart be troubled: believe in God, be- 
lieve also in me. In my Father’s house are many 
mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you; for 
I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare 


a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto 
myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. 


SUPREME PURPOSE OF JESUS CHRIST 243 


That is the highest word of revelation about the 
destiny of man. It is crowned with the light of 
everlasting ‘life. It assures the Christian an eter- 
nal association, reunion beyond the grave. It 
shows us the full, final, triumphant Kingdom of 
God. It is the revelation of heaven and it is 
enough. And, if we do not misread, there are dis- 
tinet intimations now not only that man is to live 
forever but that he will have work to do, services 
to render through the long and blissful forever. 
His life is to go on in a grander way even than in 
this world (Rev. 22:3, 4). 

After all, here we find the supreme motive for 
conquering self, for living the white life and for 
loving one another. When the light of the eternal 
world was falling across the summits of the Delect- 
able Mountains upon the face of the aged Apostle 
John he had glimpses of the Kingdom to which he 
was going and of the God whom he should see face 
to face and he said softly but firmly and ecstati- 
eally: 

Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it is not 
yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that, if 
he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall 
see him even as he is. And every one that hath this hope 
set on him purifieth himself even as he is pure. (1 John 
3:2, 3.) Amen. 


CHAPTER XVI 


SCRIPTURE BACKGROUND OF THE CHAPTERS 


CHAPTER I 


The Idea of the Church 


The Foundation of the Church, Matt. 16:13-18; 1 Cor. 
3:11; Eph. 2:20; Nature of: Christ’s body, Eph. 1:22, 23; 
Col. 1:18; family, Eph. 3:15; House of God, 1 Tim. 3:15; 
Power of, Matt. 16:18-20; 1 Cor. 6:1, 2; mystical nature, 
Eph. 5:22-33; fulfils Christ’s sufferings, Col. 1:24. Name 
of, called ‘‘the Church,’’ 99 times; Chureh of God, 11 
times; Churches of Christ, 1. Word church occurs 114 
times in New Testament. Names for individual followers 
of Christ: Christians, 3 times; believers, 3; friends, 4; 
saints, 61; brethren, about 225; disciples, 268. Collective- 
ly, the Church is called a brotherhood one time. There 
will also be found such expressions as ‘‘Churches of the 
Gentiles,’’ Romans 16:4; ‘‘Churches of Asia,’’? 1 Cor. 16: 
19; ‘‘Churehes of Macedonia,’’ 2 Cor. 8:1; ‘‘Churehes of 
Galatia,’’ ‘‘Seven Churches in Asia,’’ etc. 


CHAPTER II 
The Proposal of the Disciples 
Union, Unity, Fellowship 


Local congregation, Matt. 18:15-35; Romans 16:17; 1 
Cor. 1:10-13; 11:18; 12:12-31; Matt. 12:25-29; Mark 3:23- 
27; Luke 11:14-19. What unity is, John 17:20-26; Eph. 


244 


ScRIPTURE BACKGROUND OF THE CHAPTERS 245 


4:1-6; Col. 3:12-17; 1 John 1; John 9:1-35; John 4:19-26; 
Luke 9:49-56; Romans, 14th chapter. 


CHAPTER III 
The Doctrine of the Disciples 


Doctrine, Practice, Theology 
Matt. 7:15-29; 16:13-20; John, Ist chapter; John, 14th 
chapter; Acts 2:14-38; Acts 8:26-40; Romans 12; 1 Cor. 
13; Heb. 13:8; the epistle of James; Rev. 1:12-20; Matt. 
25:31-46; Rev. 19:13; Acts 10:36; 1 Timothy 3:16. 


CHAPTER IV 


The Bible and Its Use 


The Bible. The Words of Christ. LKevelation 


Psalm 19; Psalm 119; Matt. 4:4, 7, 10; Mark 13:31; 
Luke 4:16-20; John 5:39-47; Acts 8:26-40; Romans 3:1, 2; 
Colossians 3:16; 2 Tim, 3:16, 17; Heb. 1:1, 2; 1 Peter 4: 
LOL), 


CHAPTER V 
The Church and Its Purposes 


Word occurs 114 times in New Testament. See Matt. 16: 
18-20; Acts 12:1-5, 11-17; Eph. 5:23, 24; Rev. 1:9-20, ete. 
New Testament Churches: Jerusalem, Thessalonians, Co- 
rinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Romans, Galatians, the 
seven churches of Asia. Their foundation, Jerusalem, 
Acts, chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; Philippians, Acts 16:14-40; 
Thessalonians, Acts 17:1-12; Corinthians, Acts 18:1-11; 
Ephesians, Acts 19:1-41; 20:1-38. It is not known how 
the Roman Church was founded. In connection with 
these churches study the epistles to them, Romans, Corin- 


246 THE DISCIPLES 


thians, Ephesians, Philippians and Thessalonians. Also 
the first three chapters of Revelation. 


CHAPTER VI 


The Ordinances and Their Reason 


The value of symbols, language, memorials. The 
power of a pledge, promise, oath, or seal. The power 
of the flag. Jesus observed the symbols and ordinances 
of the Jewish law. Power of pass word, sign, etc. 
Power of a ceremony like marriage, taking oath of office, 
an inauguration. The cross on a church. The symbol 
used by early Christians as witnessed in the catacombs. 
These ideas illustrate power of the ordinances. The 
authority for them is in various scriptures, such as 
Matt. 28:18-20; Mark 16:14-16; Acts 2:38; Romans 6: 
LTS et Cor. leas, 


CHAPTER VII 
Baptism, The Faith Ordinance 


Matt. 3:14-17; Matt. 28:18-20; John 3:1-16; John 3:23; 
Acts 2:38-47; Acts 8:27-39; Acts 9:17-19; Acts 19:1-7; 
Romans 6:1-10; 1 Cor. 10:1-4; Col. 3:1-3; 1 Peter 3:21, 22. 


CHAPTER VIII 


The Lord’s Supper; the Love Ordinance 


In the Gospels, Matthew 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-26; 
Luke 22:14-20; John does not describe the Supper itself, 
but gives an account of the mood, temper, occurrences, 
etc., in’ chapters 13 and 14, and possibly 15, 16, 17. 
The Lord’s Supper in Acts 2:42, 46; 20:7, 11; the Lord’s 
Supper in Epistles; 1 Cor. 10:16, 17, 21; 11:17-34. 


ScripTuRE BACKGROUND OF THE CHAPTERS 247 


CHAPTER IX 


The Lord’s Day; How to Use It 


The First Lord’s Day in History. Its morning. Matt. 
28:1-15; Mark 16:1-13; Luke 24:1-12; John 20:1-18; Its 
evening, Mark 16:12, 13; Luke 24:13-49; John 20:19-25. 
The second Lord’s day in history, Mark 16:14; John 
20:26-29. Fifth Lord’s day (probably), Acts 2:1-42; A 
Thrilling Lord’s Day (an opinion), Acts 12:5-18. An- 
other Lord’s Day evening, Acts 20:7-12; Duties of the 
Lord’s Day, 1 Cor. 16:1, 2. Read Acts 20:7 in connection 
with 1 Cor. 11:23-29. A Wonderful Lord’s Day, Rev. 
1:9-20. This book of marvellous vision, optimism, move- 
ment and spiritual dynamic may be looked upon as a 
vision of the Lord’s Day. 


CHAPTER X 


About Joining the Church 


Matt. 28:19, 20; Acts 2:36-47; Acts 8:26-39; Acts 
9:1-19; Acts 10:34-48; Acts 16:13-15, 23-34; Acts 18:5-11; 
Romans 6:4-8; Gal. 3:26-29; Col. 3:1-17. Note: In a 
general way the Acts shows how to become a Christian, 
which is or should be the same as joining the church; 
the epistles how to live the life. 


CHAPTER XI 


How to be a Good Church Member 
Great passages and chapters on being a good church 
member: Matt., chapters 5-7, 25; Luke 19:11-27; John 
15:1-17; Acts 2:42; Romans, chapters 6, 8, 12; 1 Cor. 
18; 2 Cor. 8:7; 9:1-15; Gal. 5:13-26; Gal. 6:1-10;, Eph., 
chapters 4, 5, 6; Phil. 4:4-13; Philemon. 
Note: The epistles especially teach how to cultivate 


248 THe DISCIPLES 


personal religious life and how to live in the Church. 
The epistles of James, John and Peter are exceedingly 
rich and beautiful in this respect. 


CHAPTER XII 


How the Church Works 


Acts 6:1-6; Acts 13:1-3; Romans 12:4-8; 16:1, 2; 1 
Cor, 12:4-31; 16:1-23; 2 Cor., chapters 8 and 9; Eph., 
chapter 4. | 

Note: The New Testament is a book of principles, 
doctrines, facts, gives Christ’s program, Matt. 28:18-20, 
and leaves man to devise ways and means. The work 
and methods of the Church are suggested by its organi- 
zation and by methods of choosing officers, etc. The 
kind of work to be done is set forth in New Testament. 
It is still what humanity needs. 


CHAPTER XIII 


How the Churches Work Together 


(1) Through travelling evangelists and Christians, 
Acts 9:32; Acts 15:35-41; Acts 18:24-28; (2) by deputa- 
tions, Acts 11:19-24; Acts 15:22; (3) By apostolic let- 
ters, Acts) 15:23-39; (1 Cor. 6:92 1 Cory 7: 13722 Cor ages 
Col. 4:16; 1 Thess. 5:27: 2 Thess. 2:2, 15; 3:14 17202 
Peter 3:1; (4) By Church letters, possibly special letters 
of commendation, Rom. 16:1; 2 Cor. 3:1; Acts 18:27; 
1 Cor. 16:3; (5) By special messengers, 1 Cor. 16:3; 2 
Cor, 8:16-24; Eph. 6:21, 22; Phil. 4:18; 2 Timothy 4:12; 
Titus 3:12, 13;. (6) by conference, Acts 15:1-35: "In 
these Scriptures we find the germ idea of church letters, 
the religious press conferences, delegates and conven- 
tions. 


SCRIPTURE BACKGROUND OF THE CHAPTERS 249 


CHAPTER XIV 
How Disciples Work With Others 


There is no parallel condition to that of Christendom 
today in the New Testament, for there were then no 
denominations. But there are signs that they were be- 
ginning. There are, however, scriptures which contain 
the idea of how Christ’s followers of different views 
may work together. See Matt. 23:8-12; Mark 9:38-50, 
and Luke 9:49-56; John 17; Acts 10:44-48; Romans 14: 
1-23; 15:1-7; 1 Cor. 1:10-17; Gal. 2:1-10; Eph. 4:1-6; 
1 John 1:1-10; where to draw the line of separation, 
Heb. 13:10; 1 John 4:1-6; 2 John, verses 9-11. 


CHAPTER XV 


The Supreme Purpose of Jesus Christ 


To establish the Kingdom of God on earth: Matt. 4:17; 
by saving the lost, Luke 19:10; by regenerating men, 
John 3:3-16; by giving new life, John 10:10; by giving 
program of work, Matt. 6:9-15; Matt. 25:31-46; Luke 
4:14-19; through men, Matt. 6:9, 10, 33; Matt. 16:19; 
Matt. 28:18-20; by preparing men to live forever, John 
14:1-7; by the power of the cross, John 3:14, 15; John 
12:32-34. Nature of the kingdom, John 18:36, 37; Ro- 
mans 14:17; Hebrews 1:8. Set forth in parables: Matt. 
13:1-50; 18:21-35; 20:1-17; 22:1-14; 25:1-13; 25:14-30; 
Mark 4:26-32; Luke 14:15-24; 19:11-27. The Gift of the 
Kingdom: Luke 12:32; Luke 22:29; Eph. 5:5; Col. 1:12, 
13; Heb. 12:18-29; James 2:5; 2 Peter 1:11; Rev. 1:6. 
Consummation of the Kingdom, Acts 1:6; Rev. 11:15; 
Rev., chapters 21 and 22; 1 Cor. 15:20-28, 35-58. 





INDEX 


A 


Abbott, Helen Ireland, 6 

American and Foreign Bible 
Society, 16 

American Bible Union, 16 

American Christian Review, 
The, 20 

Anti-Saloon League, 220 

Apostolic Succession, 182 

Association for the Promo- 
vone orn, Ch ris titan 
Unity, The, 209 

Augustine, 72 


B 


Bader, Jesse M., 6 
Baptism, the Faith Ordi- 
nance, 106-117 
Place of, 106 
Who may be baptized, 108 
What it is, 110-113 
What it does for us, 113 
Relation to church mem- 
bership, 84 
Baptism of Jesus, 106-114 
ra deees and the Holy Spirit, 
Barclay, Dr. James T., 24 
Bethany College, founding 


OLwZE 
Bible, the and Its Use, 63- 
G7 


What it is, 63 
Analyzed, 64-65 
Origin of, 65 
Truth of, 67 
Purpose of, 68 
Leading ideas of, 69 
Power of, 70 
Fourteen ways to study, 
72-76 
Supremacy of, 76, 77 
Brush Run, 11 
Bullard, Dr. Chester, 10 


Cc 


Calvin, John, 34 
Campbells, their discovery, 
34 


Campbell, Thomas, 10, 33, 
39, 44, 226 

Campbell, Alexander, 10, 11, 
Member of Bible So- 
cieties, etc., 16, union 
he advocated, 43 

Caneridge Revival, 10 

Carey, William, 34 

Centennial Convention, 26 

Chillingworth, about Bible, 


30 
Christ and Intellect, 169 
Christ’s ‘letters from 
heaven,’’ 166 
Christian Association, The, 
10, 389, 226 
eh Baptist, The, Git; 
0 


Christian Board of Publica- 


tion, 210 

Christian Connection, 10, 
Union with Disciples, 
LOLS 

Christian Endeavor Move- 
m 6:7: tj) 91631) 222, 7 the 
pledge, 223 

‘“‘Christians’’ and ‘Disci- 
ples’—Big Four of 
Each, 18, 19 


Christian-Evangelist, The, 20 
Christian Messenger, The, 20 
Christian Standard, 20 

Christian Union, definition, 


, 


Christian Union Quarterly, 


The, 209 
Chrysostom, gave name _ to 
Bible, 638; called 
Lord’s day dies panis, 
142 
Church, The, and Its Pur- 
pose, 78-91 
Origin, 79 
Nature, 81 
Mission, 87 
Power, 91 


Church, Joining the, 145-161 
Meaning of, 146 
Why join the church, 146 


251 


252 


Church, joining the—Cont’d 
Fitness for membership, 
149 


How to join, 150 


Greatness of belonging, 157 © 


ore reforms by, 160, 
Battles must yet win, 161 
Smallest a world force, 

161 " 
Criticism of, 145 
Church Member, A _ Good, 
162-177 
Different from others, 163 
His motto, 164 
His habits, 165-174 
His attitude to life, 175 
A ‘soul winner, 176 
Examples of, 176-177 
Church, The, How it Works, 
178-195 
Models, 178 
Ae apn thie ad of leaders, 
17 
Duties, how known, 180 
Organization, 180 
Officers, 181 
Departments, 182 
Evangelistic, 183 
Pastoral, 184 
Benevolent, 187 
Board of officers, 190 
General Committees, 192 
Organization, not mere 
mechanics, 194 
Church, Right to be called 
Selo 
Churches Working Together, 
The, 196-212 
Conditions of 
tion, 196 
Srnsdagat ate Agencies, 197- 
1 
International Conven- 
tion, 198 
United Christian M*is- 
sionary Society, 202 
State Societies, 207 
Board of Education, 207 
Board of Temperance, 
208 
Association for Promo- 
tion of Christian 
Unity, 209 
Colleges, 209 
Christian Board of Pub- 


Co-opera- 


INDEX 


Churches, Co-operative agen- 
cies—Cont’d 
lication, 210, gift of 
R. . Long to the 
Brotherhood, 211 
Standard Publishing 
Company, 211 
Churches of Disciples, How 
They Work with 
Others, 213-228 
Urgency of need, 213 
Principles of co-opera- 
tion, 215 
Causes in which may co- 
operate, 218 
Organization through 
which to co-operate, 
219-228 
Many co-operative agen- 
cies, 228 
Clow, W. W., quoted, 92 
Cory, A. E., 25 
Sone a teat Presbyterians, 


D 


Deacons and Their Services, 
187; Rise of office, 188; 
Their work social serv- 
ice, 188 

Debates of Campbell with 
Walker, McCalla, 
Owen, Purcell, Rice, 
213222 

Tcessoean and Address, 10, 


Declaration of Independence 
and the Bible, 75 
Disciple, Name preferred by 

Campbell, 15; in U. S. 
wis 15 
SN s of Christ, History, 
eek movement arose, 
“Christians” and ‘‘Disci- 
ples’’ Unite, 12 
Principles followed, 17 
Pioneers, 18 
Agencies and methods, 19 
Organization and achieve- 


ment, 23 
Colleges and education, 28 
Recapitulation and  out- 
look, 30 


INDEX 


‘“Disciples’’—u nion with 
‘“*‘Christians,’’ 12-15 
“Disciples’’ and  ‘“‘Chris- 

sr Sbigee four, 18; 
Disciples of Christ, 
proposal, 32-49 
What proposal is, 34 
Reason of, 35 
Nature of, 39 
How to realize, 44 
Progress of, 46 
Future of, 47 
Mec trcn of the Disciples, 50- 


No creed, 50 

Sufficiency of the New Tes- 
tament, 

Faith in a person, 54 

ea and Apologetics, 

Nature of Christianity, 57 

Mysticism, 61 

Drinkwater, John, 

104 


their 


quoted, 


“Dropping Members,’’ 192 
Duhamel, Dr. Georges, 
quoted, 98 


E 


Highteenth Amendment, 221 

Elders, their qualifications, 
185; their duties, 186 

“Hmperor’s Day” vs. Lord’s 
Day, 133 

Errett, Isaac, editor, 20 

SEY Gk challenge, 160, 

Extra-Church Organizations, 
219-221 


¥F 


Federal Council Churches of 
Christ, 17 
Its constitution, 224 
atl of Disciples into, 


Resemblance to “The 
Christian A'ssociation,’’ 
89, 226 
Frank, R. Graham, 6 


Bee. Benjamin, editor, 
0 


258 


G 


Garrison, J. H., 520 

Gano, John A., 19 

Gideons, the, 220 

Gladstone, W. E., debt to 
Bible, 71 

pias anal T. R., quoted, 


Godet, F., his beautiful illus- 
tration, 63 


H 


Harlan, Mrs. M. E., 25 

Headlam, A. C. (and San- 
day) quoted, 111, 112 

HOW oye 

Horton, R. F., quoted, 83 

How the Churches Work 
With Others, 213-288 

Hunt, Holman, his motto, 
164, 165 

Hyde, William DeWitt on 

vanica Membership, 


I 
Inspiration and Revelation, 
Intra-Church Organizations, 
221-223 


ail eA Organizations, 


International! Critics! 


Com- 
mentary, quoted, i111, 
112 

J 


Jesus Christ, an evangelist, 


184 

Jesus Christ, His Supreme 
Purpose, 229-243 

Why know his purpose, 


229 
What it is, 230-231 
Ideal of, 232-236 
How Jesus builds, 236 
Johnson, B. W., editor, 20 
Johnson, John T., editor, 19 


K 
Kershner, F. D., 6, 39 
sae oe God, its ideals, 


How Jesus builds, 236-241 


204 


L 
secretary’s criticism 
of church, 145 


Labor 


Leakage, of church mem- 
pee 194; of power, 
215 


Lewis, Grant K., 25 
Lincoln, Abraham, Bible 
source of style, 71, 
view of Lord’s Day, 
144 i 
Long, R. A., 25; gave pub- 
lishing house, 211 
Lord’s Day, The,—Its Value, 
182-144 
Why called, the, 132 
Origin of, 133 
Object of, 137 
Physical blessings of, 137 
Social blessings of, 139 
Opportunity of, 143 
Lord’s Day, France’s Expe- 
rience with, 138 
Lord’s Prayer, Analyzed, 
233, 234 
Lord’s Supper, the Love Or- 
dinance, 118-131 
Names, 118, 119 
Origin, and perpetuity, 
119-121 
Nature of, 121-128 
Frequency of, 128, 129 
Privilege of, 129, 130 
Relation to character, 130 
Louisiana Lottery, 160 
Luther, Martin, 9, 32, 72 


M 
MacDonald, George, parable 
by, 123, 124 


McLean, A., 
Magna Charta and Bible, 75 
Men and Millions Movement, 


24, 25 
Millennial Harbinger, 20 


Miracles, suggestiveness of, 
TSO i 2oD, mS Oar 
science, 236 

Moore, W. T., 5, 15 

N 
“New Lights,’’ 19 
New ‘Testament, analysis, 


64, study plan, 162, 
163 


INDEX 


O 


O’Kelly, James, 10 
Old Testament, analysis, 64 
“Open Membership,’’ 154-157 
Ordinances, The, and Their 
Reason, 92-105 
How they arose, 93 
Number of, 94 
Why ordinances, 95 
Marks of, 100 
No substitutes for, 103 


Organizations through 
Which to Co-operate, 
219 
Extra-Church Organiza- 
ions, 219 
Intra-Church Organiza- 
tions, 221 
Inter-Church Organiza- 
tions, 223 
P 


Papers, Church, 20 

Paul on Christian Union, 40 

Paul, Alexander, 24 

Pilgrim’s Progress and Bi- 
ble, 72 

Pliny’s letter on frequency 
of Lord’s Supper, 128 

Pocket Testament League, 
220 

Prayer Meeting, its value, 

5 4 

Protestantism, building ideas 
of;.9 

Pulpit, the voice of the 
church, 168 


R 


Rains, F. M., 24 

Red Cross, 221 

Redstone Baptist 
tion, 

Renan, E., 71 

Richardson, Robert, 19 

Rogers, John, 19 

Rogers, Samuel, 19 

eeeee Catholic Absolutism, 


Ruskin, John, 71 


Associa- 


Ss 


Sanday, William (and Head- 
lam) quoted, 111,112 
Science and Christianity, 185 


INDEX Mays) 
Scott, Walter, preacher, 10, Voltaire, view of Lord’s 
18 Day, 143 
Scott, Sir Walter, 77, 163 
Shakespeare’s debt to Bible, 
72 Ww 


Sheltonye We. P46 

Shelton, Dr. Albert L., 62 

Sill, Edward Rowland, 
quoted, 148 

Smith, John (Raccoon) 12, 
speech, 13, 99 

Social Service, 188 

Stockton; Robert H., 62 

Stone, Barton W., 10, 12, 
speech, 138, 14, 19; ed- 
itor, 20; idea, of refor- 
mation 33, 99 

Sunday-school organization, 


Ey 
Tertullian, quoted, 136 
Tyler bends o 

U 


Union, Christian defined, 42, 
43; nature of according 
to Jesus, 39-40; accord- 
ing to Paul, 40 


Vv 


Vance, Dr. James I., quoted, 
122 


| 





War against war, 218 

Watson, E. O., 227 

Watson, John, 64 

Webster, Daniel, debt to Bi- 
ble, 71 

Wesley, John, 34 

ed arith Traffic,’ 160, 


Wicliffe, John, 34 q 

Willard, Frances E., 140 

Williams, Sir George, 220 

Woman’s Christian Temper- 
ance Union, 220 

Woodley, Jessie, 6 

World Call, 20 


Y 


Year Book of the Churches, 
E. O. Watson, 227 
Young Men’s Christian As- 

sociation, 219 
Young People’s Society of 
Christian Endeavor, 
219; pledge, 223 
Young Women’s Christian 
Association, 219 
















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